TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has begun uranium enrichment at a new underground site built to withstand possible airstrikes, a leading hard-line newspaper reported Sunday in another show of defiance against Western pressure to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program.
The operations at the bunker-like facility south of Tehran, reported by the Kayhan daily newspaper, are small in comparison to Iran’s main enrichment site. But the centrifuges at the underground labs are considered more efficient and are shielded from aerial surveillance and protected against airstrikes by up to 300 feet (90 metres) of mountain rock.
Uranium enrichment is at the core of the international standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.
The U.S. and its allies fear Iran could use its enrichment facilities to develop high-grade nuclear material for warheads.
Iran — which claims it only seeks nuclear reactors for energy and research — has sharply increased its threats and military posturing against stronger pressures, including U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s Central Bank in attempts to complicate its ability to sell oil.
A senior commander of the Revolutionary Guard force was quoted as saying Tehran’s leadership has decided to order the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic oil route, if the country’s petroleum exports are blocked.
“The supreme authorities ... have insisted that if enemies block the export of our oil, we won’t allow a drop of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. This is the strategy of the Islamic Republic in countering such threats,” Revolutionary Guard deputy commander Ali Ashraf Nouri was quoted as saying by another newspaper, the Khorasan daily.
For the moment, however, U.S. officials are seeking stronger diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran rather than increasing threats of military action.
A number of experts say Iran is unlikely to close the strait because that could hurt Iran as much as the West.
The Kayhan newspaper, which is close to Iran’s ruling clerics, said Tehran has begun injecting uranium gas into sophisticated centrifuges at the Fordo facility near the holy city of Qom.
Iran’s nuclear chief, Fereidoun Abbasi, said Saturday that his country will “soon” begin enrichment at Fordo.
It was impossible to immediately reconcile the two reports.
Tehran says it needs the nuclear program to produce fuel for future reactors and medical radioisotopes needed for cancer patients.
The country has been enriching uranium to less than 5 per cent for years, but it began to further enrich part of its uranium stockpile to nearly 20 per cent as of February 2010.