Iran to launch nuclear work in bunker

Iran will in the "near future" start enriching uranium deep inside a mountain, a senior official said, a move likely to further antagonise Western powers which suspect Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons capability.
A decision by the Islamic Republic to conduct sensitive atomic activities at an underground site - offering better protection against any enemy attacks - could complicate diplomatic efforts to resolve the long-running row peacefully.
Iran has said for months that it is preparing to move its highest-grade uranium refinement work to Fordow, a facility near the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Qom in central Iran, from its main enrichment plant at Natanz.
The United States and its allies say Iran is trying to build bombs, but Tehran insists its nuclear programme is aimed at generating power and for medical purposes.
"The Fordow nuclear enrichment plant will be operational in the near future," the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, said. Uranium refined to purity levels of both 3.5 percent and 20 percent can be produced at the site, he added in comments carried by Iran's Kayhan newspaper on Sunday.
One Western official said with the start-up of Fordow, Iran would send a political signal to show it will not bow to international demands to suspend uranium enrichment, activity which can have both civilian and military uses.
The West has imposed increasingly tight economic sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear programme, culminating with a new law signed on New Year's Eve by US President Barack Obama aimed at preventing buyers from paying for Iranian oil.
"I would see it as another escalatory step on the Iranian side," the official, who declined to be named, said. As the sanctions pressure mounts on the major oil producer, Iran has called for fresh talks on its nuclear programme with the permanent members of the Security Council and Germany (P5+1), which have been stalled for a year.
Western powers have repeatedly made clear they are also ready for renewed diplomacy, but stress that Iran must show it is willing to engage in meaningful discussions and start addressing growing international concerns about its work.
"They have to demonstrate they are going to be serious," the Western official said, speaking prior to Iran's latest announcement on Fordow's planned inauguration. Diplomats in Vienna, home to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, told Reuters on Friday that Iran was believed to have begun feeding uranium gas into centrifuges in Fordow in late December as part of final preparations to use the machines for enrichment. The centrifuges and other equipment needed to start enrichment were installed at Fordow last year.