The Natanz uranium enrichment plant in central Iran, where the authorities announced on Sunday April 11 a ” power outage “ of suspicious origin, was targeted by an act of “Anti-nuclear terrorism”, according to an official statement broadcast by state television.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran, while condemning this futile action, stresses the need for the international community and the International Atomic Energy Agency to face this anti-nuclear terrorism”, said, in this press release, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (OIEA), Ali Akbar Salehi. The press release does not accuse any group or state by name for this attack and gives no indication of the state of the installations concerned.
“This action reflects (…) the failure of opponents to negotiations (…) to lift the cruel sanctions ” of the United States against Iran, adds Salehi, referring to the negotiations underway in Vienna to try to bring the United States back to the 2015 international agreement on Iranian nuclear power and lift the sanctions imposed by Washington against Tehran since 2018. It also shows “The defeat of the opponents of the industrial and political progress of the country with the aim of preventing an explosive development of the nuclear industry”, judge the chief of the OIEA.
New centrifuges
Mr. Salehi promises that his country “Will also continue to seriously pursue the expansion of nuclear technology, on the one hand, and its efforts to lift cruel sanctions, on the other hand, in order to thwart the objectives of the sponsors of this terrorist act”.
Earlier on Sunday, OIEA spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi announced that a ” power outage “ had occurred in the morning at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, one of the main centers of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, where, the day before, new cascades of centrifuges banned by the Iran nuclear deal of 2015.
