TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran’s Natanz nuclear site had a problem with the power grid on Sunday, just hours after starting up new advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium faster, state television reported. It was the latest incident to hit one of Tehran’s safest locations during negotiations over the ruptured nuclear deal with world powers.
Power had been out of the facility’s above-ground workshops and underground enrichment halls, civil nuclear program spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told Iranian state television.
“Here the power has indeed been cut, and we don’t know the reason for the outage,” he said. “The incident is under investigation and we will inform you of the reason when we find out.”
The word state television used in his reports attributed to Kamalvandi in Farsi can also be used for ‘bad luck’.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees Iran’s program, said it was “aware of the media reports,” but declined to comment.
Malek Shariati Niasar, a lawmaker who serves as spokesman for the Iranian Parliament’s energy committee, wrote on Twitter that the incident was “highly suspicious”, expressing concern about possible “sabotage and infiltration”. He said lawmakers are also pursuing the details of the incident.
A facility previously targeted by the Stuxnet computer virus, Natanz was built largely underground to withstand enemy air raids. It became a flashpoint for Western fears about Iran’s nuclear program in 2002, when satellite photos showed Iran building its underground centrifuge facility on 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, which authorities later labeled as sabotageIran is now rebuilding that facility deep in a nearby mountain.
Israel, Iran’s regional nemesis, is suspected of launching an attack there and carrying out other attacks, as world powers are now negotiating their nuclear deal with Tehran in Vienna.
Iran also blamed Israel for the murder of a scientist which began the country’s military nuclear program decades earlier. Israel has not claimed any of the attacks, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly described Iran as the biggest threat his country has faced in recent weeks.
Israeli officials could not be immediately reached for comment. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin landed in Israel on Sunday for talks with Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Secretary Benny Gantz.
Natanz today houses the country’s main uranium enrichment facility. In the long underground halls, centrifuges quickly spin uranium hexafluoride gas to enrich uranium.
On Saturday, Iran announced that 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 President Donald Trump’s then-withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Tehran has abandoned all limits on its uranium supply. It now enriches up to 20% purity, a technical step away from 90% weapon quality levels. Iran is maintaining its nuclear program for peaceful purposes, but fears that Tehran might be able to create a bomb led world powers to reach a deal with the Islamic Republic in 2015.
The deal will lift economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for restricting its program and allowing inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to keep a close eye on its work.
On Tuesday, an Iranian freighter that would serve as a floating base for the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard off the coast of Yemen was hit by an explosion, likely from a sea slug mine. Iran has blamed Israel for the explosion. That attack sparked a long-running shadow war in the waterways of the Middle East, targeting shipping in the region
Gambrell reported from Dubai, UAE.