TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has begun enriching uranium at a new underground site, a leading Iranian newspaper reported Sunday.
The Fordo nuclear complex, built into a mountain near the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom, is said to have more sophisticated centrifuges used to enrich uranium and to be better protected from possible airstrikes by foreign powers than a facility in Natanz in central Iran.
“The transfer of uranium enrichment to Fardo means that the option of a military threat against the nuclear program of Iran is taken off the table for good,” the Kayhan daily reported Sunday. “The West will have to gradually accept the immunity of the program against any interference by foreigners.”
The announcement came at a time of escalating tension over Iran’s nuclear program, which the United States and its allies suspect is aimed at developing weapons. President Barack Obama recently approved new sanctions against financial institutions that do business with Iran’s central bank. The European Union is also considering additional measures, including an oil embargo.
Iranian officials have threatened to retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes tanker ships carrying about a fifth of the world’s oil exports.
At the same time, Iran has called for a new round of talks on its nuclear program with the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany.
Iran already has a major uranium enrichment facility in Natanz that has been operating since 2006 and has about 8,000 centrifuges. The country’s first efforts were aimed at enriching uranium to a concentration level of less than 5 percent uranium-235, which is suitable for use in a power reactor.
In February 2010, Iran began to further enrich part of its stockpile to 20 percent, saying it needs the higher-grade material to produce fuel for a reactor that produces medical radioisotopes to treat cancer patients. The development raised concern in the West because the higher-grade uranium can be more quickly converted into fissile material for a nuclear warhead, which would generally need to be enriched to 80 or 90 percent.
The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydun Abbasi, told the semiofficial Mehr News Agency on Saturday that the Fordo facility would start up “in the near future,” and is capable of producing uranium enriched to 3.5, 4 and 20 percent.
