CAIRO — Iran on Saturday began building a new nuclear power plant in the southwest of the country, Iranian state television said, amid tensions with the U.S. over sweeping sanctions imposed after Washington pulled out of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear deal with world powers was eliminated.
The announcement comes as Iran was rocked by nationwide protests challenging the theocratic government, which began after the death of a young woman in police custody over alleged violations of the Islamic dress code. In a potentially related move, Iran’s semi-official news agency IRNA late Saturday quoted a senior prosecutor as saying officials had “closed down” the morality police, which is responsible for enforcing the dress code. There were no details.
The construction of the new 300-megawatt power plant, called Karoon, will take eight years and cost around $2 billion, the country’s state television and radio agency reported. The plant will be built in Iran’s oil-rich province of Khuzestan near Iraq’s western border, sources said.
The site dedication ceremony was attended by Mohammed Eslami, head of Iran’s civilian Atomic Energy Agency, who first unveiled the construction plans for Karoon in April.
Iran has a nuclear power plant at its southern port of Bushehr, which went online with Russia’s help in 2011, as well as several underground nuclear facilities.
The announcement of Karoon’s construction came less than two weeks after Iran said it had started producing enriched uranium with a purity of 60% at the country’s underground Fordo nuclear facility. The move is seen as a significant addition to the country’s nuclear program.
Fortification to 60% purity is a short, technical step away from 90% weapon-grade stats. Non-proliferation experts have warned in recent months that Iran now has enough 60% enriched uranium to reprocess into fuel for at least one nuclear bomb.
The move was condemned by Germany, France and Britain, the three Western European nations remaining in the Iran nuclear deal. 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 rocked by nationwide protests, marking one of the greatest challenges to its theocracy since the chaotic years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The protests were sparked when Mahsa Amini, 22, died in custody on September 16, three days after she was arrested by vice squads for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women. The Iranian government insists Amini was not ill-treated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after her arrest.
In a statement by state news agency IRNA on Saturday, the country’s National Security Council said about 200 people were killed in the protests, the body’s first official word on the victims. Last week, Iranian General Amir Ali Hajizadeh put the death toll at more than 300.
The conflicting tolls are lower than tolls reported by human rights activists in Iran, a US-based organization that has been closely monitoring the protest since the outbreak. In its latest update, the group says 469 people were killed and 18,210 others arrested during the protests and the ensuing crackdown by security forces.
Iranian state media also announced on Saturday that the family home of Elnaz Rekabi, an Iranian rock climber who competed abroad with her hair down, had been demolished. Iran’s official news agency for justice, Mizan, said the demolition of her brother’s house was due to his “illegal construction and use of land” and the demolition happened months before Rekabi’s participation in the competition. Government opponents speak of a targeted demolition.
Rekabi became a symbol of the anti-government movement in October after participating in a climbing competition in South Korea without wearing the headscarf required for female athletes from the Islamic Republic. In an Instagram post the following day, Rekabi described not wearing a hijab as “unintentionally”, but it remains unclear if she wrote the post or what condition she was in at the time.
Since September, there has been a decline in the number of morale police officers in Iranian cities. The group was formed in 2005 with the task of arresting people who flout the country’s Islamic dress code.
In a report published by IRNA late Saturday, Iran’s Attorney General Mohamed Jafar Montazeri said the morality police had been “shut down”. He gave no further details on the condition of the force or whether its closure was widespread and permanent.
“The judiciary continues to monitor community-level behaviors,” Montazeri added.
Separately, the US Navy said Saturday it intercepted a fishing vessel Thursday in the Gulf of Oman trying to smuggle 50 tons of ammunition and a key component for missiles from Iran to Yemen.
Experts have accused the Iranian government of continually conducting illegal arms smuggling operations to supply Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Deliveries included rifles, bazookas and rockets. Last month, the US seized 70 tons of a rocket fuel component hidden between bags of fertilizer on board a ship sailing from Iran to Yemen.
“This significant interdiction (on Thursday) clearly demonstrates Iran’s continued illicit transfer of deadly aid and its destabilizing behavior,” Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of the U.S. Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, said in a statement.
There was no immediate comment from Iran on the seizure.
Iran has been the Houthis’ main supporter since the rebel force swept down from Yemen’s northern mountains in 2014 and seized the capital, Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognized government into exile. The following year, a Saudi-led coalition armed with US weapons and intelligence intervened to try to restore the internationally recognized government to power. Since 2014, the United Nations has imposed an arms embargo prohibiting arms sales to the Houthis.
The United States unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal – officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA – in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump. It re-imposed sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to back out of the deal’s terms. Iran has long denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and has insisted its nuclear program is peaceful.