Report: Iran to enrich uranium at protected site

TEHERAN: Iran has begun uranium enrichment programme at a new underground site well protected from possible airstrikes, a leading hardline newspaper reported.

Kayhan daily, which is close to Iran’s ruling clerics, said yesterday that Teheran began injecting uranium gas into sophisticated centrifuges at the Fordo facility near the holy city of Qom.

“Kayhan received reports on Saturday that shows Iran beginning uranium enrichment at the Fordo facility amid heightened foreign enemy threats,” the paper said in a front-page report. Kayhan’s manager is a representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But Iran’s nuclear chief Fereidoun Abbasi said his country would begin enrichment at Fordo “soon”. It was impossible to immediately reconcile the two reports at press time.

Iran has a major uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in central Iran, where nearly 8,000 centrifuges are operating. The Fordo centrifuges however are reportedly more efficient, and the site better shielded from aerial attack.

Built next to a military complex, Fordo was long kept secret and was only acknowledged by Iran after it was identified by Western intelligence agencies in September 2009.

Uranium enrichment lies at the heart of Iran’s dispute with the West.

The technology that can be used to produce nuclear fuel, but also materials for atomic bombs.

The US and its allies fear Iran’s ability to make its own nuclear fuel will eventually lead to atomic weapons.

Iran says it only seeks reactors for energy and research, but refuses to halt its uranium enrichment activities.

It says it needs to keep the enrichment programme to produce fuel for future nuclear reactors and medical radioisotopes needed for cancer patients. — AP