Tehran Denies Opposition Group's Claim About Nuclear Facility

Alireza Jafarzadeh, the president of Strategic Policy Consulting, points to a monitor reportedly showing tunnels to a nuclear site during a press conference to present information on Iran’s new "major secret" nuclear site, Washington, D.C., on September 9

Iran has denied claims that it has a covert uranium enrichment facility after a dissident Iranian group claimed it had evidence of a new secret underground atomic site.

Iran's top nuclear official, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Tehran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency about all of the country's nuclear facilities.

On September 9, Iranian dissident Alireza Jafarzadeh told a press conference in Washington that his group had information about an unreported nuclear facility from sources in Iran.

Jafarzadeh said the facility was underground in mountains about 120 kilometers west of Tehran and was intended to enrich uranium.

The information about the site is reported to have come from sources inside Iran affiliated with the exiled opposition groups the National Council of Resistance of Iran and the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran, which is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. government.

News agencies quoted U.S. officials as saying Washington had known about the facility for years and had no reason to think it was being used for nuclear purposes.

The United States has led efforts to impose UN sanctions against Iran over the Islamic republic's refusal to halt uranium-enrichment work, which could be diverted toward an atomic weapon.

compiled from agency reports