Centuries-old partnership binds China, Iran together. For more than a decade, Beijing helped give Tehran a head start in its nuclear program

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(09-18) 04:00 PDT Beijing -- With Iran's nuclear enrichment program at the center of high-stakes multinational negotiations, China is in the awkward position of passing judgment in the U.N. Security Council on the very technology it helped the Islamic republic accumulate. For more than a decade, starting in 1984, China aided Iran with its fledgling nuclear program. Although Beijing no longer is providing such assistance, Tehran's weapons program would be far less sophisticated had it not received significant Chinese help. That assistance included training Iranian scientists, helping to build facilities, and direct military aid and hardware sales, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based research group. China also supplied Iran's first nuclear reactor in 1991, in addition to hardware and support. "Between 1985 and 1997, China was Iran's most important nuclear partner," said John Garver, associate at Georgia Institute of Technology's China Research Center and author of "China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World." Click here to read the rest of the article.