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From The Times
March 4, 2005

Iran shows nuclear bunker mentality

By Michael Evans
IRAN is building a hardened concrete tunnel for storing nuclear materials half a mile underground, sources at the International Atomic Energy Agency revealed yesterday.

The tunnel, in the city of Isfahan, about 100 miles south of Tehran, was being built to withstand “bunker-busting” bombs, the sources said.

Details of the development emerged after a three-day meeting of the IAEA in Vienna.

Iran had failed to inform the agency of the deep-tunnelling project, the sources said. When Tehran was questioned about it, the agency was supplied with “preliminary design information”. Isfahan is the home of Tehran’s uraniumenrichment programme.

Construction began in September last year to “increase capacity, safety and security of nuclear material”.

Diplomatic sources said that Iran was worried about possible attacks on its nuclear sites by the US or Israel, both of which have accused Tehran of attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Iran claims that its uranium-enrichment programme is intended solely for civilian nuclear power. Officials from Britain, France and Germany are due to meet their Iranian counterparts in Geneva next week to discuss ways of resolving the issue.

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