Iran denies claim of hidden nuclear site

AFP/Tehran

Iran yesterday denied claims by an exiled opposition group that it has built a new hidden nuclear site deep beneath a mountain near the town of Damavand in Tehran province.

“This information is false and we reject it,” foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi told the Mehr news agency.

“These claims are a continuation of the story-telling of the bankrupt group,” Araqchi said, adding the “terrorist” organisation lacked credibility.

On Thursday, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran said it has evidence of a new hidden nuclear site that Iran was constructing secretly.

“The organisation of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) has discovered credible evidence of a secret new nuclear site, gathered over a year by 50 sources in various parts of the regime,” said a statement from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the umbrella group of which MEK is a part.

“The codename of the project is ‘Ma’adan-e Sharq’ (literally ‘the mine of the east’) or ‘Project Kossar’. This site is hidden in a series of tunnels under a mountain near the town of Damavand,” it said.

The Paris-based militant group MEK alleges that the site has existed since 2006, with the first series of subterranean tunnels and four external depots recently completed.

The group also claims that president-elect Hassan Rohani, a former nuclear negotiator, played a “key role” in the programme.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it “will assess the information that has been provided, as we do with any new information we receive”.

Iran is suspected by much of the West and arch-rival Israel of wanting to develop atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme, a charge Tehran strongly denies.

The Paris-based NCRI exposed Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water facility at Arak in 2002. But analysts say it has a mixed track record and a political agenda.

The NCRI did not specify what kind of atomic activity it believed would be carried out at the alleged new facility once complete.

Iran said in 2009 it planned to build 10 more uranium enrichment sites on top of its underground Natanz and Fordow plants, alarming the West as it could enable Tehran to faster produce material which can have both civilian and military uses.

Tehran’s refusal to curb sensitive nuclear activity, and its lack of full openness with the IAEA, have drawn tough Western sanctions and a threat of pre-emptive military strikes by Israel.