Copyright: Tasnim News Agency
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency, which is close
to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), has posted a video with a caption saying: “Isfahan’s nuclear site is completely safe”.
The footage appears to show a man checking his watch near
the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre. The camera then zooms in on several
troops standing around what looks like an air defence battery.
According to the World Nuclear Association, the Isfahan
Nuclear Technology Centre includes a uranium conversion facility (UCF), which
produces uranium hexafluoride.
Iran feeds uranium hexafluoride gas into centrifuges to
produce enriched uranium, which can be used to make reactor fuel but also
nuclear weapons.
Next to the UCF is an enriched uranium oxide powder plant
(EUPP), which converts uranium hexafluoride into uranium oxide, and a fuel fabrication
plant that produces fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor.
Uranium oxide can be converted into uranium metal. Iran has said it plans to use uranium metal to produce reactor fuel, but it
could also be used to make the core of a nuclear bomb.
The Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre also operates four
small nuclear research reactors supplied by China.
Iran insists its nuclear activities are entirely peaceful
and denies it has any ambitions to develop nuclear weapons. But Israel accuses Iran of developing nuclear capability that could be used to make a weapon.