Iran Starts Constructions on New Nuclear Plant

On Saturday, Iranian state television announced that Tehran has started building a new nuclear power plant in the southwest of the country.

This comes amid tensions with the US over comprehensive sanctions imposed after Washington withdrew from the nuclear deal with world powers.

The country's state radio and television agency reported that the new 300-megawatt plant, known as Karoon, will take eight years and cost about $2 billion. It added that the factory would be located in the oil-rich Iranian province of Khuzestan, near its western border with Iraq.

The opening ceremony of the construction site was attended by Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran's Civil Atomic Energy Organization, who first revealed plans to build Karoon in April.

Iran has one nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushehr, which was commissioned in 2011 with Russian help, but also several underground nuclear facilities.

The announcement of the Karoon construction came less than two weeks after Iran pointed out that it had begun producing uranium enriched to 60% purity at its underground Fordo nuclear facility. The move is seen as an important addition to the country's nuclear program.

Enrichment to 60% purity is a short technical step away from weapons levels of 90%. Non-proliferation experts have warned in recent months that Iran now has enough uranium enriched to 60% to be reprocessed into fuel for at least one nuclear bomb.

Germany, France, and the UK, the three remaining Western European countries in the Iran nuclear deal, have condemned it. Recent attempts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, have stalled.

Since September, Iran has been engulfed by nationwide protests that have come to represent one of the biggest challenges to its clerical system since the chaotic years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. 

The protests erupted when Mahsa Amini, 22, died in custody on Sept. 16, three days later. From her arrest by Iran's morality police for violating the Islamic Republic's strict dress code for women.

The Iranian government insists Amini was not mistreated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beatings after her detention.