Bushehr nuclear reactor
Bushehr nuclear reactorReuters

Iran has rejected as “baseless” claims by an exiled opposition group that it is conducting military nuclear activities in a hidden underground site, AFP reported.

“(The) baseless remarks about the existence of secret nuclear installations in Iran... are strongly rejected,” Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behrouz Kamalvand was quoted as having told the IRNA news agency.

On Monday, the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) claimed that it had information on a new and covert site designated for Iran’s nuclear project.

The group said that there was a military site in the central Isfahan province, located inside a heavily guarded 600-meter tunnel.

It admitted, however, that it was unable to ascertain what was happening inside the highly secure area.

NCRI official Mehdi Abrichamtchi told reporters that work on the site began in 2005 and the construction of tunnels ended in early 2009. Work on the facilities was recently completed, he said.

The NCRI exposed Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a heavy-water facility at Arak in 2002. In 2007, the NCRI declared that Iran had resumed its nuclear weapons program since at least 2004, one year after being ordered to shut it down. 

The Council, founded in 1981 in France, is the parliament in exile of the "Iranian Resistance",  a political umbrella coalition of five Iranian opposition political organizations. In 2012, the U.S. removed the NCRI from its watchdog list of terrorist organizations.

Since the group’s latest claim came ahead of a new round of nuclear talks between Iran and world powers in Geneva, Kamalvand accused the NCRI of making the allegation to influence the “positive atmosphere” in the talks.