TEHRAN, July 22, 2026 (Net) – Iran again denied the existence of any secret nuclear complex at Kolang mountain on Wednesday, after US President Donald Trump threatened to strike the site in the centre of the country.
“Washington’s obsessive focus on Kolang Kouh where no nuclear activity is taking place is nothing more than a fabricated pretext for aggression,
destruction, and sabotage,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said on X.
He insisted “Iran’s nuclear activities have been fully declared” to the UN’s atomic watchdog.
Trump had warned on Tuesday that the US would hit the site, known as Pickaxe Mountain in English.
“We’ll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily,” Trump said, adding that he would not normal-ly announce targets but “there’s not a thing they can do about it”.
The US has yet to follow through on the threat.
In 2025, US media outlets including The Washington Post and The New York Times reported that Iran had accelerated construction at a secret underground nuclear site at Kolang mountain, which Tehran de-nied.
The mountain is near Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, which was bombed by the US during a brief war in June of that year.
