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The central assembly plant of the centrifuge was destroyed at the Natanz plant in an explosion last August, which was reportedly sabotaged.
According to satellite imagery shared by San Francisco-based Planet Labs, Iran has been building a new road south of the Natanz uranium enrichment plants since August at a location that experts had previously predicted would be used by the target shooting security personnel.
A satellite image taken on Monday showed similar details to the excavation tools used for construction at this site. Experts from the James Martin Nuclear Non-Proliferation Studies Center, affiliated with the Middlebury Institute of International Affairs, have interpreted these images as underground excavations in the area.
Jeffrey Lewis, one of the Institute’s Iranian nuclear program experts, said: “This road goes into the mountains, so they could be tunneling into the mountain to make way for a structure to be built in the future, or burying the structure itself in that mountain “.
Photo: Reuters
WHAT IS IRAN SAYING?
The Iranian representation at the United Nations has not yet answered questions about these photos. However, Ali Akbar Salihi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, told state television last month that the destroyed surface plant had been replaced by a new one “in the heart of the mountains around Natanz.”
IAEA President Rafael Grossi said his inspectors were aware of construction works in the area. Grossi said that despite the failure of the nuclear deal reached in 2015, the inspectors of the institution, which still has access to facilities in Iran, were informed of this construction by the Iranian authorities: “This means that they have started construction but they haven’t completed it yet. “This is a long process,” he said.
The agreement reached in 2015 between the United States, China, Russia, Great Britain, France and Germany to limit Tehran’s nuclear activities collapsed with the withdrawal of US President Donald Trump and the return to sanctions.
Photo: Reuters
WHY IS NATANZ IMPORTANT?
Natanz, 250 kilometers south of the capital Tehran, is Iran’s largest uranium enrichment plant. Under the agreement signed in 2015, Iran would only produce low-enriched uranium at this plant, which is suitable for use in power plants but not suitable for weapons production.
Low-enriched uranium containing only 3-4% U-235 can be used as a fuel in nuclear power plants. The uranium required for nuclear weapons must be enriched to 90%.
With this agreement, Iran also agreed to keep a maximum of 5060 old, low-impact centrifuges in Natanz until 2026 and not to enrich the other underground facility in Fordo until 2031. But the United States announced that it had withdrawn from the agreement in 2018.
Following Trump’s decision to withdraw from the deal in 2018 and to continue with the sanctions, Iran also announced in January that it will not fulfill any of its commitments in the deal.
In November 2019, Iran announced that it had doubled the number of advanced centrifuges at the Natanz plant and started injecting uranium hexafluoride into the Fordo plant’s centrifuges.
Photo: Reuters
EXPLOSION IN THE STRUCTURE IN AUGUST
The Iranian Atomic Energy Authority said the explosion and subsequent fire at Natanz nuclear plants last August was sabotage, but did not specify who was to blame. Some Iranian officials pointed out that the fire at the plant may have been triggered by cyber sabotage.
Fires and explosions had also occurred in various other power plants in Iran near the date of this explosion. The central centrifuge assembly workshop at the plant was destroyed by the fire.
Centrifuges perform the uranium enrichment process used in nuclear power plants, but can also be used in weapons production if further developed.
Iranian officials said a more advanced one would replace the combustion plant, but admitted that this event would slow down centrifuge production in the medium term. (Turkish BBC)
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