BERLIN, Feb 8: Two German businessmen, a former Russian military officer and North Korea are among those helping Iran develop missiles that the West fears could one day carry nuclear warheads, diplomats and intelligence officials allege.

Last month German federal prosecutors formally charged two German citizens with espionage for helping a foreign intelligence agency acquire dual-use ‘delivery system’ technology. The prosecutors announced the charge of espionage last week but did not name the country involved.

The two German men have been accused of ‘having sold a vibration testing facility in 2001 and 2002 on behalf of a foreign military intelligence procurement entity’, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement posted on its Web site.

A German official familiar with the case said the country involved was Iran.

“These missile technology dealers ... appear to have been acting alone and were not part of any organised gang,” he said.

The state prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe, Germany, did not name the men or the German company they worked for.

The involvement of German citizens in what US and European officials believe is Iran’s covert nuclear weapons programme will be embarrassing for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has vowed to prevent Tehran from getting nuclear weapons.

“You really can’t separate Iran’s nuclear activities from its missile programme. The missiles are the delivery system,” an EU diplomat familiar with the case said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’ and publicly doubted that six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War Two.

Recent US intelligence recovered from a stolen laptop computer suggests that Iranian missile experts are trying to develop a missile re-entry vehicle capable of carrying a relatively small nuclear warhead, EU and US officials say.

Last week the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, voted to report Iran to the UN Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions, due to fears it is developing atomic weapons.

Iran says it does not want weapons, only nuclear energy.

NORTH KOREAN MISSILES: With the exception of Russia, China and North Korea, few countries sell Iran weapons or dual-use technology that could be used to make atomic, chemical or biological weapons.