New 'Evidence' Emerges Based On Nuclear Files Israel Smuggled Out Of Tehran
Based on satellite imagery presented on the think tank's Twitter page, the institute claimed that "construction on the then-secret Fordow enrichment plant, aka Al Ghadir, was well underway by 2004/2005.
This comes while Iran has said that the facility dated back to 2007.
The new evidence is part of Iran’s secret nuclear files taken by the Mossad in January 2018.
The institute also claimed based on translated documents that "the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization transferred responsibility for weapons-grade uranium production to the Ministry of Defense" around the year 2001.
The Jerusalem Post Claimed on Thursday March 14 that the discovery could be significant as it shows that "Iran is still lying to the international community about a nuclear facility that has no reasonable use other than military."
According to the Jerusalem Post, the report said that, “Iran’s determination to keep open this deeply buried enrichment site extended into the negotiations over the nuclear deal with Iran, also called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and even today, despite the plant having no credible civilian nuclear justification.”
The international community confronted Tehran in 2009 with the fact that it had found out about Fordow, which Iran had worked hard to conceal.
The Post added that it was "catching Iran red-handed building a secret underground nuclear facility at the time" that persuaded Russia, China and the UN Security Council to pressure the Islamic Republic with sanctions.
Under the pressure of sanctions, Iran eventually agreed to the 2015 nuclear deal.
Based on the 2015 agreement, Iran had to disclose all the aspects of its nuclear program that it had kept secret until then.
The Jerusalem Post article by Yonah Jeremy Bob added that “The Nuclear Archive raises again the deception of Iran about its past nuclear weapons activities and raises profound questions about the true purpose of this facility” in the present and when the deal’s nuclear restrictions expire in the future."
The Institute of Science further "slammed the international community for permitting Iran to continue to operate Fordow, saying that “speaks volumes of its failure to first determine and then ensure that Iran’s nuclear program is truly peaceful,” reported the Post.
The article reminded that in an interview with The Jerusalem Post in January, the think-tank’s director, David Albright, said that there were 3,000 IR-1 centrifuges for enriching uranium at Fordow which could potentially be used to produce one to two nuclear bombs per year.
This is despite the fact Iran's ability to enrich uranium was partly damaged as a result of cyber-attacks on its nuclear establishment's computer software. Some of the attacks that took place around 2011 reportedly originated from Israel.