Iran considers Fordow a strategic facility and, accordingly, delayed its conversion for more peaceful purposes.
With the intensification of US' maximum pressure campaign, Iran has sought to use the threat of resuming enrichment at Fordow as leverage.
foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/28/max…
With the intensification of US' maximum pressure campaign, Iran has sought to use the threat of resuming enrichment at Fordow as leverage.
foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/28/max…
In June 2018, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) stated that “when [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] gives the order, we will announce the programs for operating outside of the nuclear deal for reviving Fordow.”
Months later, at a visit to Fordow, Iran’s AEOI chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, was quoted as saying, “We currently have 1,044 centrifuges … and if the establishment wants, we will restart 20 percent uranium enrichment.” 
Reminder:
20% enrichment is one small step away from nuclear weapons level enrichment.
Canceling the waiver for Fordow would signal that the US will not bless any of these moves, and it would be a step toward righting Obama's concession that permitted Fordow to remain open.
20% enrichment is one small step away from nuclear weapons level enrichment.
Canceling the waiver for Fordow would signal that the US will not bless any of these moves, and it would be a step toward righting Obama's concession that permitted Fordow to remain open.
Important reminders on Fordow in #Iran & the 2015 nuclear deal:
"Then [Obama] caved. Iran keeps its Fordow nuclear facility (President Obama had said it existed solely to develop nuclear-weapon technology…"
wsj.com/articles/the-c…
"Then [Obama] caved. Iran keeps its Fordow nuclear facility (President Obama had said it existed solely to develop nuclear-weapon technology…"
wsj.com/articles/the-c…
"Many nuclear experts and American officials expected that the negotiations would end with Fordo’s complete dismantlement."
nytimes.com/2015/04/04/wor…
nytimes.com/2015/04/04/wor…
"David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington research group that monitors Iran’s nuclear program, wrote early last year that “a key demand will be that this site close down.”
isis-online.org/isis-reports/d…
isis-online.org/isis-reports/d…
"... the deal allows the retention of roughly 1,000 centrifuges in the site’s underground halls, and says nothing about forbidding the installation of highly advanced ones..Fordo thus configured might enable Iran to acquire the fuel for a bomb in as little as three months..."
"A surprise in the Iranian 'Nuclear Archive' seized in early 2018 by Israel in Tehran was a picture showing support facilities for a gas centrifuge enrichment plant. The plant later became known as the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP) located near Qom."
isis-online.org/isis-reports/d…
isis-online.org/isis-reports/d…
According to IAEA safeguards reports, the first DIQ of Oct 10, 2009 stated that Fordow would produce uranium hexafluoride enriched up to 5% uranium-235 in 16 cascades containing about 3,000 centrifuges, & that the plant was a backup in case the Natanz enrichment site was bombed.
"Iran appeared to be struggling to find a coherent civilian purpose for the site now called the Fordow enrichment site, given its extensive enrichment capabilities at the Natanz site."
"For Iran, the Fordow site and earlier the Gchine uranium site were too important to Iran’s effort to develop a nuclear weapons capability to shut down. Calling them civilian and allowing inspections or monitoring was a price worth paying."
"... major uncertainty persists regarding the potential existence of another secret installation like Fordow, the enrichment facility that Iran built inside a mountain and did not disclose..."
businessinsider.com/the-problem-wi…
businessinsider.com/the-problem-wi…
For the record, Iranian opposition coalition NCRI first unveiled Fordow back in 2005
ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statem…
Obama, however, sought to take credit four years later in 2009
nytimes.com/2009/09/26/wor…
ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statem…
Obama, however, sought to take credit four years later in 2009
nytimes.com/2009/09/26/wor…
