The" accident " Damaging a building at the Natanz nuclear center in central Iran on Thursday "Significant damage" and "Could slow down" the production of advanced centrifuges for the production of enriched uranium, according to an official source Sunday, July 5.
Tehran reported on Thursday that " accident " in this nuclear complex housing a major uranium enrichment plant. Iranian authorities say they have established "Precisely the causes of the accident" but say they don't want to reveal it to the public right now "For certain security reasons".
"There were no casualties (…) but the damage is significant on the financial level ”said Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (OIEA) spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi in an interview published Sunday evening by the official agency Irna, without elaborating on the nature of the damage.
On Thursday, Mr. Kamalvandi presented the damaged building – apparently by fire, according to images published by the OIEA and state television – as " a warehouse ". But in his interview with Irna, he says that" it was expected " let this room eventually produce "More advanced centrifuges", without saying clearly if such machines had already started to be assembled there.
"We will compensate for this slowdown"
"In the medium term, this accident could slow down the development and production plan for (centrifuges) advanced, but God willing, and with unremitting efforts (…) colleagues (from the OIEA) we will compensate for this slowdown so that more capacity is created on this site than before ", he adds.
According to Irna, the spokesperson stressed that the current uranium enrichment activities at Natanz were not affected by the accident.
Under the 2015 controversial nuclear program agreement it reached in Vienna with the international community, the Islamic Republic is required to use only a limited number of so-called centrifuges. "First generation". But since May 2019, in response to the decision taken a year earlier by the United States to denounce this pact and reinstate economic sanctions against it, Iran has gradually freed itself from the key commitments to which it had subscribed. Vienna.
Tehran has thus revived the production of enriched uranium which it had agreed to suspend at Natanz. Iran has also announced that it will remove all restrictions on its research and development activities related to uranium enrichment and work to develop more efficient centrifuges. But Tehran reiterates that it has no intention of acquiring the atomic bomb as accused by the United States and Israel.
