News
Iran to start enriching uranium in underground facility
Iran will in the near future start enriching uranium at an underground site near the city of Qom in central Iran, according to various news reports. The operations at the bunker-like Fordo facility, according to the hard-line Iranian daily Kayhan newspaper, are small compared with Iran’s main enrichment site. However, the centrifuges are shielded from aerial surveillance and protected against air strikes by up to 90 meters of mountain rock.
Some regional experts assess that enrichment at this site could be seen by Western nations as Iran reaching a point of no return with its nuclear programme. Uranium enrichment is at the core of the international communities dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme, as the US and its allies fear Iran could use its enrichment facilities to develop high-grade nuclear material for warheads. The facility south of Tehran, which was only discovered in 2009 by the US, would make monitoring and assessing Iran’s progress in enrichment much more difficult.
Senior Iranian officials have said that Iran has for months been preparing to move its high-grade uranium work from the Natanz enrichment plant to the Fordow facility near Qom. “The Fordow nuclear enrichment plant will be operational in the near future,” the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani said.
The news comes amid rising tensions between Iran and the west over plans to impose sanctions on oil exports. A senior commander of the Revolutionary Guard has warned that Tehran would order the closure of the Strait of Hormuz if the country’s oil exports were blocked. One-sixth of the world’s oil goes to market through the strait.
In response, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said yesterday that the US would react if Iran developed a nuclear weapon or closed the Strait of Hormuz. “I think they need to know that — that if they take that step — that they’re going to get stopped,” Panetta said. “But the responsible thing to do right now is to keep putting diplomatic and economic pressure on them to force them to do the right thing.”