Tehran, Iran
The uranium enrichment plant of Natanz blacked out on Sunday as a result of an act of “anti-nuclear terrorismsaid the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran condemns this futile action, but underlines the need for the international community and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to deal with this anti-nuclear terrorism,” said Iranian entity head Ali Akbar Saléhi. a statement broadcast on state television.
The incident, first reported by Fars’ official news agency, citing Iranian Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, took place a day after Natanz’s Chahid-Ahmadi-Rochan complex put new centrifuges into operation. took. despite being banned by the 2015 Iranian nuclear program agreement.
The above plant is one of the main centers of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
Previously, Kamalvandi had explained in a television telephone interview that “an accident had happened in part of the power grid of the Chahid-Ahmadi-Rochan enrichment plant” and that it was a “blackout” of unknown cause.
“Happy, there were no deaths or injuries or contaminationThere was no specific problem, the accident is being investigated, ”the spokesman told the television.
“This incident has taken place [al día siguiente] National Nuclear Technology Day and as Iran struggles to force Westerners to lift sanctions, he is deeply suspicious [obedecer a un acto de] sabotage or infiltration, “said on Twitter deputy Malek Chariati, spokesman for the parliamentary energy committee.
– “Israeli cyber operation” –
“It is believed that the failure in the Natanz electrical circuit [es] the result of an Israeli cyber operation, ”an Israeli public radio journalist, Amichai Stein, tweeted for his part, but without providing any data to support that claim.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who sees Iran as a threat to his country, has accused Tehran of secretly trying to equip itself with nuclear weapons.
“The fight against Iran and its supporters and the Iranian weapons effort is a huge mission,” he said on Sunday.
In early July, a centrifuge assembly plant in Natanz was badly damaged by a mysterious explosion. The authorities concluded that this was the result of a ‘sabotage’ of ‘terrorist’ origin, but have not yet released the results of the investigation.
At the time, the official Irna office warned Israel and the United States to avoid any hostile action.
On Saturday, Iranian President Hasan Rohani remotely inaugurated the new centrifuge assembly plant in Natanz, while ordering three new sets of centrifuges to start or test.
These will allow Iran enrich uranium faster and in greater quantities, in volumes and with a level of sophistication prohibited by the agreement concluded in 2015 in Vienna between the Islamic Republic and the international community.
The United States unilaterally denounced that pact in 2018, under Donald Trump’s presidency, and reinstated sanctions that had been lifted since the document was signed.
In retaliation, Tehran began to default on its commitments from May 2019, and the pace has picked up in recent months.
Iran and the other signatory states to the 2015 agreement (Germany, China, France, the United Kingdom and Russia) are currently negotiating in Vienna how the United States can be reintroduced into the pact and Iran can once again fully fulfill its obligations.
Tehran has always denied trying to equip itself with the atomic bomb – something Israel accuses it of – and Rohani reiterated on Saturday that his country’s nuclear activities are “peaceful.”