Satellite photos show construction at Iran nuclear facility

The satellite image shows construction at Iran's Natanz uranium-enrichment facility. Photo / AP

Iran has begun construction at its Natanz nuclear facility, satellite images show, just as the UN nuclear agency acknowledged Tehran is building an underground advanced centrifuge assembly plant after its last one exploded in a reported sabotage attack last summer.

The construction comes as the US nears election day in a campaign pitting President Donald Trump, whose maximum pressure campaign against Iran has led Tehran to abandon all limits on its atomic programme, and Joe Biden, who has expressed a willingness to return to the accord.

The outcome of the vote likely will decide which approach America takes. Heightened tensions between Iran and the US nearly ignited a war at the start of the year.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the country's nuclear programme is both peaceful and transparent to the world. Photo / AP

Since August, Iran has built a new or regraded road to the south of Natanz toward what analysts believe is a former firing range for security forces at the enrichment facility, images from San Francisco-based Planet Labs Inc show.

One satellite image shows the site cleared away with what appears to be construction equipment, while another image from Maxar Technologies shows trucks, cars, backhoes and other vehicles at the cleared site.

Analysts from the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies say they believe the site is undergoing excavation.

"That road also goes into the mountains so it may be the fact that they're digging some kind of structure that's going to be out in front and that there's going to be a tunnel in the mountains," said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert at the institute who studies Iran's nuclear programme.

"Or maybe that they're just going to bury it there."

Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said his inspectors were aware of the construction. He said Iran had previously informed IAEA inspectors, who continue to have access to Iran's sites despite the country having moved away from many limits of its landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

"They have started, but it's not completed. It's a long process," Grossi said.

Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for the Iranian mission to the United Nations, would not comment on the satellite images or discuss specifics of the construction, but said Iran was being transparent with its actions.

"Nothing in Iran regarding its peaceful nuclear programme is being done in secret, in full keeping with the JCPOA, and as the IAEA has repeatedly confirmed," Miryousefi said in an email.

"This instance is no different," he said.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, last month told state television the destroyed above-ground facility was being replaced with one "in the heart of the mountains around Natanz".

The satellite image shows construction at Iran's Natanz uranium-enrichment facility. Photo / AP

Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew the US from the JCPOA deal with Iran, in which Tehran agreed to limit its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. When the US ramped up sanctions, Iran gradually and publicly abandoned those limits as a series of escalating incidents pushed the two countries to the brink of war at the beginning of the year.

Iranian demonstrators burn a picture of President Donald Trump in response to the US decision to pull out of the nuclear deal. Photo / AP

Iran now enriches uranium to up to 4.5 per cent purity, and according to the last IAEA report, had a stockpile of 2105kg. Experts typically say 1050kg of low-enriched uranium is enough material to be re-enriched up to weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent purity for one nuclear weapon.

Grossi said, however, that the IAEA's current estimate is that Iran does not yet have enough to produce a weapon.

Iran's so-called "breakout time" — the time needed for it to build one nuclear weapon if it chose to do so — is estimated now by outside experts to have dropped from one year under the deal to as little as three months. Iran maintains its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, though Western countries fear Tehran could use it to pursue atomic weapons.

Natanz, built underground to harden it against airstrikes, long has been at the centre of those fears since its discovery in 2002. Centrifuges there still spin in vast halls under 7.6 metres of concrete. Air defence positions surround the facility in Iran's central Isfahan province.

Despite being one of the most-secure sites in Iran, Natanz was targeted by the Stuxnet computer virus — believed to be the creation of the US and Israel — before the nuclear deal.

In July, a fire and explosion struck its advanced centrifuge assembly facility in an incident Iran later described as sabotage. Suspicion has fallen on Israel, despite a claim of responsibility by a previously unheard-of group.

#Iran ambassador to #IAEA says Tehran informed nuclear watchdog that it plans to move to underground new cascades of R&D centrifuges, build more advanced facilities under #Natanz mountains.
Ambassador Gahrib-abadi says that’s to prevent enemies sabotage and attacks. pic.twitter.com/fPJafMNfS4

— Fereshteh Sadeghi فرشته صادقی (@fresh_sadegh) October 27, 2020

There have been tensions with the IAEA and Iran even at Natanz, with Tehran accusing one inspector of testing positive for explosives last year. However, so far inspectors have been able to maintain their surveillance, something Lewis described as very important.

"As long as they declared to the IAEA in the proper time frame, there's no prohibition on putting things underground," he said.

"For me, the real red line would be if the Iranians started to stonewall the IAEA."

For now, it remains unclear how deep Iran will put this new facility. And while the sabotage will delay Iran in assembling new centrifuges, Lewis warned the programme ultimately would regroup as it had before and continue accumulating ever-more material beyond the scope of the abandoned nuclear deal.

"We buy ourselves a few months," he said. "But what good is a few months if we don't know what we're going to use it for?"