Iran denies uranium enrichment and secret nuclear sites

Foreign minister says all facilities are monitored by UN, after reports in US media suggest Tehran is operating undeclared 'Pickaxe Mountain' site

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. AP

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denied Tehran has undeclared nuclear sites and insisted the country is not carrying out uranium enrichment.

The denials came after US media outlets, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, reported that Iran has accelerated construction at a secret underground site called Pickaxe Mountain, or Kuh-e Kolang, near its Natanz nuclear facility.

He said all sites were monitored by the UN's nuclear watchdog. "There's no undeclared nuclear enrichment facility in Iran. All of our facilities are under the safeguard and monitoring of the agency," Mr Araghchi said during a forum in Tehran on Sunday. He added that there was "no enrichment" taking place because the sites were damaged in the war with Israel in June.

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There has been no mention of the Pickaxe Mountain site by officials or Iranian media.

Deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh told CNN that Tehran's nuclear programme was still "intact" despite the 12-day conflict with Israel and that the country would be "protecting that".

He acknowledged that Israeli and US strikes in June “ruined many of our infrastructure, machineries” and buildings. He said the nuclear programme was “very much based on our indigenous knowledge, very much spread across our country, which is a huge country – 90 million people".

“And this country is not a country that you can bomb and then think that you are going to ruin everything,” Mr Khatibzadeh added.

Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign against Iran in June, attacking nuclear and military sites – as well as residential areas – and killed many top scientists. Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles at Israeli cities.

Iran has insisted the war has not presented any setbacks for the country's nuclear ambitions, which it has insisted repeatedly is for peaceful purposes. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian this month pledged to rebuild the sites.

Mr Araghchi's remarks came before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) holds at Board of Governors meeting, which has been scheduled for this week. After the war, Tehran suspended co-operation with the IAEA and restricted access to bombed sites for the watchdog's inspectors, accusing it of bias and failing to condemn the attacks.

In September, Iran and the IAEA agreed on a new co-operation framework. But weeks later Tehran deemed it invalid after the UK, France and Germany triggered the return of UN sanctions that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear deal.