“Our vulnerability in the nuclear area has reached
the minimum level,” Mr. Jalali said in remarks reported
by Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency. “If
circumstances require it, the uranium enrichment
facilities will be relocated to safer places.”
Tensions were first elevated with the publication of
a United Nations report last month that said Iran might
be working on a nuclear weapon and a missile delivery
system.
Since then, the United States and European nations
have toughened economic sanctions on Iran, American
intelligence operatives have acknowledged increased
surveillance of what are said to be Iran’s nuclear sites
and Iran captured an American spy drone.
Iran also has faced a steady flow of ambiguous
statements from Israel, which regards Iran as its most
dangerous enemy, about the possibility of a military
strike. And the Iranians have been confronted with a
series of suspicious acts that seem to have been
directed against their nuclear and missile capacities,
including an unexplained explosion at a military base on
Nov. 12.
The blast was described by the Iranian media as an
accident; it killed Iran’s long-range missile pioneer
and might have set back the country’s long-range missile
work by years.