A footage from signing ceremony of MoU between the Atomic Energy Organization of #Iran and #Russia’s Rosatom, aimed at cooperation in the construction and development of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in Iran.
Video:
www.irannuances.com
Satellite imagery indicates Iran is continuing construction of a deeply buried military site at “Pickaxe Mountain,” just south of the Natanz nuclear facility hit by Israeli and U.S. strikes in June.
Iran has increased construction at a mysterious underground site in the months since the U.S. and Israel pummeled its main nuclear facilities, suggesting Tehran has not entirely ceased work on its suspected weapons program and may be cautiously rebuilding, according to a Washington Post review of satellite imagery and independent analysis.
The ongoing work is at a site known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or Pickaxe Mountain, where since 2020 Iranian engineers have been tunneling deep into the Zagros mountain range — about a mile south of the nuclear complex at Natanz, which was a target of U.S. bombing strikes on June 22.
The purpose of Pickaxe Mountain remains unclear. International nuclear inspectors have never visited and Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tehran rebuffed his questions about the site earlier this year.
Analysts who have monitored its construction estimate the halls under Pickaxe Mountain may be even deeper — between 260 and 330 feet — than those at Iran’s Fordow facility, which U.S. warplanes struck with massive earth-penetrating bombs. The site’s aboveground footprint sprawls over roughly a square mile of mountainside, with a pair of tunnel entrances on the east and west sides.
Read More:Iran said in 2020, when it announced plans for the facility, that it would house a production plant for assembling centrifuges, fast-spinning machines for enriching uranium, replacing a site destroyed earlier that year in what Tehran called an act of sabotage.
Read More:Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said the Trump administration had demanded his country hand over its entire enriched uranium stockpile in exchange for temporary relief from impending UN sanctions
The Foreign Ministers of Qatar, Jordan, UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt have issued a joint statement welcoming today’s announced 20-point comprehensive plan by U.S. President Donald J. Trump to end the ongoing war and rebuild the Gaza Strip, while preventing the displacement of the Palestinians. Additionally, the countries welcome President Trump’s announcement that he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.
