Iran has begun construction on a site at its underground nuclear facility at Fordo amid tensions with the US over its atomic program, satellite photos obtained yesterday by The Associated Press (AP) show.
Iran has not publicly acknowledged any new construction at Fordo, whose discovery by the West in 2009 came in an earlier round of brinkmanship before world powers an Iran in 2015 signed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
While the purpose of the building remains unclear, any work at Fordo will likely trigger new concern in the waning days of the administration of US President Donald Trump before the inauguration of US president-elect Joe Biden.
Photo: AP
Iran is already building at its Natanz nuclear facility, after a mysterious explosion at the site in July that Tehran described as a sabotage attack.
“Any changes at this site will be carefully watched as a sign of where Iran’s nuclear program is headed,” said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
Iran’s mission to the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors are in Iran as part of the nuclear deal, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Construction on the Fordo site began in late September. Satellite images obtained from Maxar Technologies show the construction taking place at a northwestern corner of the site, near the holy Shiite city of Qom about 90km southwest of Tehran.
A photo taken on Friday last week shows what appears to be a dug foundation for a building with dozens of pillars. Such pillars can be used in construction to support buildings in earthquake zones.
The construction site sits northwest of Fordo’s underground facility, built deep inside a mountain to protect it from potential airstrikes.
The site is near other support and research-and-development buildings at Fordo. Among those buildings is Iran’s National Vacuum Technology Center.
Vacuum technology is a crucial component of Iran’s uranium-gas centrifuges, which enrich uranium.
A Twitter account called Observer IL earlier this week published an image of Fordo showing the construction, citing it as coming from South Korea’s Korea Aerospace Research Institute.
The AP later reached the Twitter user, who identified himself as a retired Israeli Defense Forces soldier with a civil engineering background. He asked that his name not be published over previous threats that he received online.
The South Korean institute acknowledged taking the satellite photo.
Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew the US from the nuclear deal, in which Tehran had agreed to limit its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Trump cited Iran’s ballistic missile program, its regional policies and other issues in withdrawing from the accord, although the deal focused entirely on Tehran’s atomic program.
When the US ramped up sanctions, Iran gradually and publicly abandoned the deal’s limits as a series of escalating incidents at the beginning of the year pushed the two countries to the brink of war. Tensions still remain high.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘KAMPAI’: It is said that people in Japan began brewing rice about 2,000 years ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol Traditional Japanese knowledge and skills used in the production of sake and shochu distilled spirits were approved on Wednesday for addition to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a committee of the UN cultural body said It is believed people in the archipelago began brewing rice in a simple way about two millennia ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol. By about 1000 AD, the imperial palace had a department to supervise the manufacturing of sake and its use in rituals, the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association said. The multi-staged brewing techniques still used today are
RSS