Tehran has successfully procured two types of equipment, the Hot Isostatic Press and the Hot Press, to shape enriched uranium as part of nuclear weapons production at the Materials and Energy Research Centre (Pazhuheshgah-e Mavad va Enerzhi), Dowlat Nowrouzi, UK representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told reporters at a conference in the House of Commons.
Both machines are banned items, she said.
The MERC site, located on the edge of Meshkin-Dasht near Karaj, forty kilometres west of the Iranian capital, is operating under the cover of a scientific and industrial research centre affiliated to the Ministry of Science and is run under the direction of Dr. Fatollah Moztarzadeh, Nowrouzi said.
She said that the information has been obtained by the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK).
These machines are able to simultaneously use pressure and heat to produce uranium spheres for production of nuclear bomb. The combination of pressure and heat allows the metal to melt at a lower temperature, she said.
The NCRI said that Tehran had attempted to obtain the machines from Western countries, including Belgium, under the cover of scientific research at Tehran University, Malek Ashtar University, affiliated to the Ministry of Defence, and Imam Hussein University, affiliated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The producing countries declined to sell the machines to the Iranian regime and, for this reason, the mullahs agents procured the machines indirectly and through front companies and transferred them to Iran, Nowrouzi said.
Iran had also managed to renovate and bring back into use a U.S.-made machine purchased some 30 years ago, the NCRI said, adding that presently five more Hot Press machines were being manufactured at the site.
