Iran admits building new underground atomic plant

Replacement for sabotaged Natanz facility

Iran admitted on Tuesday that it is building a giant new nuclear development plant in mountains near its Natanz atomic research site.

The plant will build and operate advanced centrifuges for enriching uranium, a key process in the manufacture of a nuclear weapon. An explosion and fire at Natanz in July, as a result of sabotage, caused significant damage that slowed the development of advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges.

“Due to the sabotage, it was decided to build a more modern, larger and more comprehensive hall in all dimensions in the heart of the mountain near Natanz. The work has begun,” Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said on Tuesday.

The development will confirm suspicions that Iran is intent on further breaches of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 agreement to curb its nuclear program in return for an easing of international sanctions, analysts told Arab News. “Building a replacement for a facility that was already conducting illegal work only adds fuel to the fire,” said Dr. Theodore Karasik, a senior adviser at Gulf State Analytics in Washington, DC.

“Iran continues to misbehave and challenge the international community with its nuclear program. The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is quite clear about what is going on.

“At a time when there should be movement in a peaceful and positive way, the government in Iran instead goes in the opposite direction. Tehran’s aggression continues with harassment of shipping and advances in missile launch technologies and missile systems themselves. “Proceeding down this pathway is confrontational and mistaken. Those who see and support Iran as a victim are seriously misled by wishful ideologies and a disastrous understanding of ‘realpolitik’.” Natanz is the centerpiece of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which Tehran claims is for peaceful purposes. In its long underground halls, centrifuges rapidly spin uranium hexafluoride gas to enrich uranium.

The Natanz site, much of which is

Building a replacement for a facility that was already conducting illegal work only adds fuel to the fire.

Dr. Theodore Karasik

Senior adviser at Gulf State Analytics

buried deep underground to deter attack from the air, is one of several Iranian facilities monitored by IAEA inspectors. The IAEA says Iran enriches uranium to about 4.5 percent purity, which is in breach of the terms of the nuclear deal but still considerably below weapons-grade levels of 90 percent. Workers there also have conducted tests on advanced centrifuges, according to the agency. The explosion and fire at Natanz was one of several incidents this year targeting key infrastructure. Authorities in Tehran said last month they had identified who was responsible for the sabotage, but they have made no arrests.