Official: Iran Moving Uranium Centrifuges To Underground Bunker

Iranian technicians at work in a uranium fuel-production facility

Iran's top nuclear official says Iran has started moving the machines that enrich nuclear fuel from the central city of Natanz to an underground bunker near the town of Qom.

Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani, Iran's vice president and also head of the country's Atomic Energy Organization, was quoted by state television on August 22 as saying that experts are preparing the site in Fordow, near Qom, to house the centrifuges.

Tehran announced in June that it would shift its production of higher-grade uranium to the underground facility in Fordow, in defiance of international calls to halt uranium enrichment.

Western nations fear the process is aimed at making nuclear bombs, a charge Iran denies.

The Fordow enrichment facility is carved into a mountain to protect it against possible attacks.

compiled from agency reports