Is there a subtext to a recent article in the Washington Post about Delft and Iranian students? asks Giles Scott-Smith on the Holland Bureau

‘In an idyllic Dutch town, a new wave of Iranian activism.’ So begins a recent Washington Post article which looks at the community of around 1000 Iranian students located in Delft, between Rotterdam and The Hague. Articles on the Netherlands in the major US press are rare, so this one stands out.
The Iranians are studying engineering, aerospace technology and physics at the Delft University of Technology, one of the best institutes of its kind. Significantly, the article points out that sanctions prevent these students from taking up similar programmes in the US.
The article goes on to describe how the Iranian community in Europe is divided between those demanding overthrow of the current regime and those asking only for reforms. The Delft community represents the second group, since as another Iranian put it, “Many of these kids are from wealthy North Tehran” and are more passive than those who left Iran longer ago. Nevertheless “there is a lot of potential in Delft.”
Potential for what? The first name that the Post article brings to mind is A.Q. Khan. The ‘father of the Pakistani bomb’ also studied at Delft in the late 1960s, moving on from there to a position with the FDO research institute in Amsterdam from 1972-75. Khan, via his metallurgy research at FDO, came into contact with the highly sensitive British-Dutch-German unranium enrichment programme being run by Urenco in Almelo. At some point he took on the task of collecting materials and methods that would lead directly into the developing Pakistani nuclear project.
And the university-security issue has already been on the agenda this year. In April the cabinet admitted that the pursuit of a ‘knowledge economy’ – involving attracting talent from abroad – also had a security aspect due to the problem of infiltration by intelligence elements. Then in August it was explained that the AIVD has regular contact with universities to ensure awareness of the risks.
Special attention was given to the technical universities in Twente, Eindhoven, and Delft. Twente let it be known that they had turned away Iranian students in 2008 precisely because they could become involved in sensistive nuclear-related research. The government’s position – that students can be turned away due to the potential security risk even if they satisfy the educational requirements – has been challenged in court, and is yet to be fully resolved.
But the smoke and mirrors in the Khan story are endless. As came out several years afterwards, the Pakistani had been under suspicion and surveillance in 1975 due to his already cavalier approach to gathering nuclear know-how, including orders being placed for specific equipment by the Pakistani embassy in Brussels. But the BVD was requested by the CIA to allow Khan to continue, in order to follow the trail. Khan left the Netherlands at the end of the year without any action being taken.
When the case came out of the closet via a German tv programme in 1979, the Dutch had no choice but to check out their own skeletons. A court duly ruled in 1983 that Khan should face four years in prison. The case was then overturned in 1985 on a technicality.
Ruud Lubbers, who described the whole affair in an interview in 2005 (after the New York Times broke the story in 2004), agreed that as premier he could have overturned this technicality and kept Khan a wanted man, but instead bowed to the Cold War dictat of the US-Pakistani ‘alliance’ against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. For the second time US interests overruled Dutch concerns.
But Khan continued to return, his wife being Dutch. In 1988 he was picked up for a ‘traffic violation’ (i.e. he was under surveillance and told he was unwelcome) and put over the border. Then in 1992, with his father-in-law ill, he was allowed in to visit once more. Despite the resistance of both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Justice.
Who allowed him in? The head of the BVD, Docters van Leeuwen. And who allowed him to take such a step against the wishes of the ministers? In his own words – the secretary general, the highest civil service position, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The circle is complete.
But back to the Post and Delft. It comes out in August that the Dutch security service is liaising with technical universities about the potential intelligence threat posed by foreign students. Then a month later a US article focuses on Delft as a hotbed of Iranian liberalism, but still adds that “Many here say they want an Iran that is connected to the world, but they also support nationalist causes such as Iran’s right to nuclear energy.” Is there a subtext here?