TEHRAN: Iran’s atomic energy organisation said om Sunday that the Natanz nuclear facility was hit by a terrorist act, hours after it said an “accident” had caused a power failure there.
The episode came a day after the Islamic Republic said that it had started up advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges at the site, in a breach of its commitments under a troubled 2015 deal with world powers.
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Iran Atomic Energy Organisation (IAEO), condemned a “futile” act, while urging the international community to “confront this anti-nuclear terrorism”, in a statement carried by state television.
The attack was carried out by “opponents of the country’s industrial and political progress, who aim to prevent development of a thriving nuclear industry,” he said, without specifying what country or entity might be behind the alleged sabotage.
IAEO spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi had earlier reported an accident at the enrichment facility caused by a “power failure”. No-one was injured and there was no radioactive release, the official Fars news agency reported, citing the spokesman.
Kamalvandi said that there had been “an accident in part of the electrical circuit of the enrichment facility” at the Natanz complex near Tehran.
“The causes of the accident are under investigation and more details will be released later,” he added, before the later statement put out by the agency’s chief.
He did not say whether power was cut only in the enrichment facility or across other installations at the site.
Malek Chariati, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s energy commission, took to Twitter to allege sabotage.
“This incident, coming (the day after) National Nuclear Technology Day, as Iran endeavours to press the West into lifting sanctions, is strongly suspected to be sabotage or infiltration,” Chariati said.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani had on Saturday inaugurated a cascade of centrifuges for enriching uranium and two test cascades at Natanz, in a ceremony broadcast by state television.
An Israeli public broadcast journalist, Amichai Stein, said on Twitter “the assessment is that the fault” at Natanz is the “result of an Israeli cyber operation”, without elaborating or providing evidence to corroborate his claim.
Natanz, a facility earlier targeted by the Stuxnet computer virus, was largely built underground to withstand enemy airstrikes. It became a flashpoint for Western fears about Iran’s nuclear programme in 2002, when satellite photos showed Iran building its underground centrifuges facility at the site, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of the capital, Tehran.
Natanz suffered a mysterious explosion at its advanced centrifuge assembly plant in July that authorities later described as sabotage. Iran now is rebuilding that facility deep inside a nearby mountain.
Israel, Iran’s regional archenemy, has been suspected of carrying out an attack there, as well as launching other assaults, as world powers now negotiate with Tehran in Vienna over its nuclear deal.
Iran also blamed Israel for the killing of a scientist who began the country’s military nuclear program decades earlier. Israel has not claimed any of the attacks, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly has described Iran as the major threat faced by his country in recent weeks.
Natanz today hosts the country’s main uranium enrichment facility. In its long underground halls, centrifuges rapidly spin uranium hexafluoride gas to enrich uranium.
On Saturday, Iran announced it had launched a chain of 164 IR-6 centrifuges at the plant. Officials also began testing the IR-9 centrifuge, which they say will enrich uranium 50 times faster than Iran’s first-generation centrifuges, the IR-1. The nuclear deal limited Iran to using only IR-1s for enrichment.
Since then-president Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Tehran has abandoned all the limits of its uranium stockpile. It now enriches up to 20 per cent purity, a technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent. Iran maintains its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, but fears about Tehran having the ability to make a bomb saw world powers reach the deal with the Islamic Republic in 2015.
The deal lifted economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for it limiting its programme and allowing inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to keep a close watch on its work.
On Tuesday, an Iranian cargo ship said to serve as a floating base for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard forces off the coast of Yemen was struck by an explosion, likely from a limpet mine. Iran has blamed Israel for the blast. That attack escalated a long-running shadow war in Mideast waterways targeting shipping in the region.
Israel and Iran have in recent weeks reported sabotage to their ships at sea. Syria has accused Israel of air strikes on its territory. Israel says it is trying to stem a build-up of Iranian forces within next-door Syria.
ISRAEL PLEDGES TO WORK WITH US ON IRAN:
Israel’s defence minister pledged on Sunday to cooperate with the United States on Iran, voicing hope that Israeli security would be safeguarded under any renewed Iranian nuclear deal that Washington reaches.
“Israel views the United States as a full partner across all operational theatres, not the least Iran,” Benny Gantz said after hosting visiting US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.
“And we will work closely with our American allies to ensure that any new agreement with Iran will secure the vital interests of the world and the United States, prevent a dangerous arms race in our region and protect the State of Israel.”
Austin, making the first visit to Israel by a senior Biden administration official, told his counterpart that Washington views the alliance with Israel as central to regional security.
Austin’s visit includes talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is worried about the Democratic administration’s desire for a US return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with major powers, which the previous Republican administration quit.
Netanyahu has said that Israel will not be bound by a renewed deal, which he describes as a temporary cap on Iranian nuclear capabilities that would pave the way to bomb-production in the longer-run. Tehran says its nuclear ambitions are purely peaceful.
Israeli officials have long threatened last-ditch military action against Iran if they deem foreign diplomacy a dead-end.
In his public remarks, Austin did not comment on Iran specifically. He said that the Biden administration would continue to ensure Israel’s “qualitative military edge” in the Middle East as part of a “strong commitment to Israel and the Israeli people”.
“Our bilateral relationship with Israel in particular is central to regional stability and security in the Middle East. During our meeting I reaffirmed to Minister Gantz our commitment to Israel is enduring and it is ironclad,” Austin said.
