CAIRO (AP) — Iran launched a new nuclear power plant in the country’s southwest on Saturday amid tensions with the United States over drastic sanctions imposed after Washington withdrew from the Islamic Republic’s nuclear deal with world powers. Iranian state television has announced that construction has begun on the site.
The announcement also comes as Iran is challenged by the country’s theocratic government, rocked by nationwide anti-government protests that began after the death of a young woman in police custody.
The new 300-megawatt power plant, known as Karoon, will take eight years to build and cost about $2 billion, state television and radio stations reported. The plant will be located in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province, near the western border with Iraq, the company said.
The construction site dedication ceremony was attended by Mohammed Eslami, head of Iran’s Civil Atomic Energy Agency, who first announced plans to build Karoon in April.
Iran has one nuclear power plant at the port of Bushehr in the south, which began operation in 2011 with the help of Russia, but also has several underground nuclear facilities.
Karoon’s construction announcement came less than two weeks after Iran announced it had begun producing 60% pure enriched uranium at its underground Fordo nuclear facility. The move is seen as a significant addition to the country’s nuclear program.
Enrichment to 60% purity is a short technological step away from weapons grade 90%. Non-proliferation experts have warned in recent months that Iran has enough of her 60% enriched uranium to reprocess into fuel for at least one of her nuclear bombs.
The move was condemned by Germany, France and the UK, the three Western European countries remaining in the Iran nuclear deal. Recent attempts to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, which eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbing its nuclear program, have stalled.
Since September, Iran has been plagued by nationwide protests that have come to represent one of the greatest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the chaotic years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. I was. She was arrested by Iran’s morality police for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women three days later when she died in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, on Sept. 16. , the protests caught fire. The Iranian government insists Amini was not abused, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of assault after she was detained.
In a statement issued by Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA on Saturday, the country’s National Security Council said about 200 people had died during the protests. Last week, Iranian General Amir Ali Hajizadeh put the death toll at over 300.
The conflicting toll is lower than that reported by Iranian human rights activists, a US-based organization that has been closely monitoring the protests since the outbreak. said 469 people were killed and 18,210 detained in the protests and subsequent violent security force crackdown.
The United States unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump. It reimposed sanctions on Iran and prompted Tehran to back down from the terms of the deal. Iran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons and claims its nuclear program is peaceful.
