Pakistani Proposal: Iran Gets Cash in Return for IAEA Inspections That
Apparently Exclude Strategic Pickaxe Mountain Facility

Dr. Aaron Lerner 20 October, 2026
(For video https://youtu.be/G-Wu6LrKGrU )

While President Donald Trump has recently discussed the possibility of
bombing Iran's strategic underground Pickaxe Mountain facility near Natanz,
a Pakistani-Qatari proposal reported today, 20 October, offers Iran
financial relief involving $6 billion in frozen funds in exchange for
inspections of nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA).

The proposal apparently does not include inspections of Pickaxe Mountain, a
massive underground complex associated with the manufacture and assembly of
uranium-enrichment equipment.

Pickaxe Mountain has not had the status of a "nuclear facility" for
inspection because Iran claims that while they openly manufacture enrichment
equipment at Pickaxe Mountain that they don't operate the equipment there.

Had Iran agreed to IAEA inspections of Pickaxe Mountain, this would have
represented a significant Iranian concession and a major diplomatic
achievement for the Trump administration.

Such a breakthrough would have certainly been prominently highlighted in
reporting about the proposal.

The absence of any mention of Pickaxe Mountain is therefore a strong
indication that the facility has not been added to the locations covered by
the proposed inspections.

This omission is particularly troubling because serious American nuclear
experts have raised the possibility that Pickaxe Mountain could be used not
merely to manufacture enrichment equipment but to conduct uranium enrichment
itself.

In a 9 September, 2026, analysis, Joseph Rodgers, Douglas Comstock, and
Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. of the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS) identified the possibility that Iran was developing Pickaxe Mountain
into an underground uranium-enrichment facility.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/satellite-imagery-pickaxe-mountain

Thus, while there is no public confirmation that uranium enrichment is
already taking place at Pickaxe Mountain, there are serious concerns about
its potential role in rebuilding Iran's enrichment capabilities.

The proposed arrangement could therefore provide Iran with financial relief
while leaving a strategically important underground facility outside the
inspection regime.

The published terms also provide no indication that Iran would be required
to halt its ballistic missile production or broader military reconstruction.

Is this insanity?
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