{{An exiled Iranian opposition group claimed on Thursday to have evidence of a hidden nuclear site located in tunnels beneath a mountain near the town of Damavand, 70 kilometres (44 miles) northeast of Tehran.}}<\/p>\n
The Paris-based militant group the People\u2019s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), alleges the site has existed since 2006 with the first series of subterranean tunnels and four external depots recently completed.<\/p>\n
The group also claims the recently elected president Hassan Rohani, a former nuclear negotiator, had a \u201ckey role\u201d in the programme.<\/p>\n
The Vienna based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) remained non committal about the MEK\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Agency will assess the information that has been provided, as we do with any new information we receive,\u201d spokeswoman Gill Tudor told media.<\/p>\n
Founded in the 1960s to oppose the rule of the Shah, the MEK was considered a terrorist organisation by the United States until last year, and has provided information about the Iranian nuclear programme on several occasions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe organisation of the People\u2019s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) has discovered credible evidence of a secret new nuclear site, gathered over a year by 50 sources in various parts of the regime,\u201d said a statement from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the umbrella group of which MEK is a part.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe codename of the project is \u2018Ma\u2019adane-e Charq\u2019 (literally \u2018the mine of the east\u2019) or \u2018Project Kossar\u2019. This site is hidden in a series of tunnels under a mountain near the town of Damavand,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The report added that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a senior official in Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard, is also a managing director of a company the MEK claims is overseeing the project\u2019s \u201cnuclear, biological and chemical programmes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UN\u2019s atomic watchdog IAEA has attempted to speak to Fakhrizadeh in the past without success.<\/p>\n
The \u201cnext phase\u201d of the project will be the construction of up to 30 tunnels and 30 depots, the report added.<\/p>\n
The report concluded: \u201cThese revelations demonstrate once again that the Mullahs\u2019 regime has no intention of stopping or even suspending the development of a nuclear weapon,\u201d the MEK said, calling on the IAEA to visit the secret site.<\/p>\n
The West suspects Iran of seeking the atomic bomb, although Tehran has repeatedly insisted its nuclear programme was merely for peaceful purposes. The standoff has prompted a raft of sanctions from the UN, the United States and Europe.<\/p>\n
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