President Donald Trump said on Friday the United States could strike Iran’s heavily fortified Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site “very soon”, renewing a threat against a site linked to Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Trump told reporters at the White House, “We may hit Pickaxe very soon,” adding that US intelligence was monitoring activity at the site closely. “We know everybody that’s moving at Pickaxe,” he said, warning that the United States would respond forcefully if activity resumed.
Trump said the US campaign was to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. “They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon. That’s what we did,” he said, referring to a US military strike against Iran.
Pickaxe Mountain is a hardened underground installation close to Iran’s uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz. The site, which is the site of deeply buried tunnels, has become a major concern because of its reported links to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Trump also downplayed the scale of the confrontation, referring to it as a “military conflict” rather than a war and calling it “small potatoes” for the United States.
Iran has always denied pursuing a nuclear weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency cannot currently verify the location of a significant stockpile of Iranian uranium enriched to 60%, Reuters said.
