IAEA suspects more hidden nuclear sites in Iran

 

VIENNA (WJC)–Iran could have several secret nuclear facilities across the country, according to a new report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. IAEA inspectors who visited the recently disclosed underground nuclear enrichment plant near Qom last month said the site was built to hold 3,000 centrifuges, enough to enrich uranium for one or two nuclear weapons a year, but not enough to support a civilian nuclear power program.

The IAEA report said the construction of the underground site was at an advanced stage but added that it did not yet contain centrifuges or nuclear material. Iranian officials told the inspectors that the facility would begin operations in 2011, according to ‘Reuters’. The officials also said that the underground site had been built to preserve what Iran called its civilian nuclear enrichment program in case its other enrichment facility in Natanz was bombed by Israel.

Iran disclosed the location of the Qom site only in September, some seven years after the start of construction and only after the British and American governments made its existence public.

The inspectors said Iran had “provided access to all areas of the facility” and planned to complete it by 2011. They also said they had been unable to interview its director and designers. The IAEA report concludes that the discovery of the new facility “reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under construction, and gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities in Iran which had not been declared to the agency.”

A spokesman for the US State Department said the report “underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully with its international nuclear obligations.”

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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress