Iran accused of building secret underground nuclear plant
The Daily Telegraph, September 9, 2010
Alireza Jafarzadeh, Foreign Affairs Analyst and Iran Expert
By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Iran has been secretly
constructing a vast underground complex to hide a nuclear
facility in the mountains east of Tehran in a development
that would violate the UN sanctions regime, it has been
claimed.
The People's Mujahedeen of Iran has previously revealed
secret atomic plants at Natanz nuclear plant in central Iran
The site, code-named 311, is set inside a military base near
Abyek, 75 miles outside the capital, and consists of a
series of four bombproof tunnels made from reinforced
concrete set 656ft (200m) deep inside a desert ridge.
The People's Mujahedeen of Iran, an opposition group with an
extensive network inside the country, said Tehran launched
construction at the facility in 2005 and had spent $100
million (£65 million) on the tunnels.
The exiled opposition group is a radical but deeply rooted
enemy of the Islamic Republic and its armed wing Mujahedeen
e-Khalk is proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the US.
"This is certainly part of the secret weapons program," said
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the group who presented
photographs of the site in Washington. "It's just moved
underground, in tunnels, hidden from the outside world."
The organisation said it had already passed the information,
which includes eyewitness reports from inside the facility
and satellite images showing considerable development in the
remote area, to the US government.
If construction was started in 2005 it would represent an
embarrassing failure of US intelligence which concluded the
Iranian leadership had suspended enrichment of uranium, the
key component of a nuclear weapon, at the time.
A Western diplomat said the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), the UN agency that safeguards atomic
materials, would be expected to examine the report. If the
information is credible the IAEA would demand access to the
site to ensure that no refinement of uranium or other
nuclear materials had taken place there.
"Any new plant would be in contravention of a six UN
security council resolutions warning Iran to suspend all
enrichment and reprocessing activities," the diplomat said.
Iran has maintained that it does not need to notify the IAEA
of construction of a nuclear plant until 180 days before it
is commissioned. However, the agency believes that Iran is
under an obligation to confirm its intention to construct a
plant.
The IAEA has established a substantial inspections regime at
Natanz where, a report said this week, that Iran had
processed 2.8 tonnes of low-enriched uranium, enough to
manufacture two nuclear weapons, and 48lb of higher refined
material that could more easily be converted into a bomb.
The People's Mujahedeen of Iran said that Iran was believed
to be about one year from commissioning the Abyek site but
that there had recently been a worrying escalation in the
amount of electricity being consumed by the plant. It said
that electricity usage had doubled in recent months, though
the group could not confirm that Iran had move centrifuge
equipment to refine uranium to the plant.
Iranian officials have vowed to pursue a nuclear energy
programme in defiance of international pressure. Officials
have said there are plans to build 10 uranium enrichment
plants in secret locations including mountain tunnels.
Meanwhile in Tehran the Culture Ministry said one of the
three Americans jailed for crossing the border with Iraq
more than a year ago would be released tomorrow.
Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27 have
been accused by Iranian authorities of spying and of
illegally entering Iran.
The three insist they entered the Islamic republic by
mistake after being lost during a hike in Iraqi Kurdistan,
while US authorities says they are innocent and should be
released immediately.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is a FOX News Channel Foreign Affairs
Analyst and the author of "The
Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear
Crisis" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Jafarzadeh has revealed Iran's terrorist network in Iraq and
its terror training camps since 2003. He first disclosed the
existence of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and the
Arak heavy water facility in August 2002.
