An “incident” at Natan’s nuclear facility is causing unrest in Iran and hardliners in parliament denounce President Ruhani. And that before the nuclear negotiations in Vienna go into a new round.
Tehran (dpa) – According to the nuclear organization AEOI, there was an “act of terrorism” in the Iranian nuclear facility in Natans on Sunday night.
“We condemn the act of terrorism in Natans as an attempt by Iran’s enemies to prevent nuclear progress in the country,” said AEOI chief and vice president Ali Akbar Salehi on Sunday. Another aim of the attack was to sabotage the nuclear negotiations in Vienna, Salehi said in a press release.
AEOI spokesman Behrus Kamalwandi had previously spoken of an “incident” in a workshop outside the actual facility. The cause and extent still have to be investigated. Nobody died and the plant itself started working again. Previously there was also talk of a power failure and an act of sabotage could not be ruled out. The Jerusalem Post reported suspicion that a cyber attack on Israel could have triggered an explosion.
New Iranian centrifuges for uranium enrichment are being manufactured in Natans and uranium is being enriched there – currently up to 20 percent. The facility has been the site of multiple incidents or attacks attributed to Israel, which wants to prevent Iran from being armed with nuclear weapons.
Last summer there had already been a serious explosion in a work hall for building ultra-modern centrifuges. The background remained unclear. At the time there was talk of an act of sabotage by Israel, but this has never been officially confirmed. In 2007, an explosion in the power supply destroyed dozens of centrifuges in Natans. In 2010, more than 1,000 centrifuges were destroyed there by control commands from the Stuxnet virus, which is said to have been developed by Israel and the USA. Despite the incidents, Iran was able to start using new IR-4 centrifuges for underground uranium enrichment in Natans in March 2021.
Israel regards the Iranian nuclear program as a serious threat because Iran has missiles with a range of up to 2,000 kilometers that could hit any part of Israel. If the missiles were equipped with nuclear warheads, Israel’s existence would be seriously threatened. Tehran stresses that it has no nuclear warheads and that it only uses missiles in the event of a retaliatory strike.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Sunday after a conversation with his US colleague Lloyd Austin: “Tehran today represents a strategic threat to the entire region.” On January 4th, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed that Israel would not allow Iran to manufacture nuclear weapons. His energy minister Juval Steinitz said in February that Iran could produce enough uranium for an atomic bomb within six months.
There was also a political incident in Tehran on Sunday. The parliament accused President Hassan Ruhani of having disregarded passed laws. As the Fars news agency reported on Sunday, 190 of the 235 mandate holders present voted for an advertisement by Ruhani. Observers saw a connection with the new search in Vienna for a compromise with the USA on the currently canceled nuclear agreement. Legal action against a president is a novelty in Iran and it remained unclear what a trial against Ruhani could look like. Ruhani stands for the nuclear deal that the hardliners in parliament are fighting against.
Even after their victory in the parliamentary elections in February 2020, the hardliners wanted the president to be summoned and, ultimately, to resign. Ruhani had removed the Islamic Republic from its ideological goals with a pro-Western policy and the Vienna nuclear agreement of 2015, it said. In addition, his reforms would have led the country into a dire economic crisis.
In October 2020, one of the MPs even called for Ruhani’s execution because the president had proposed negotiations with the US to get the country out of the economic crisis. For his part, Ruhani accuses the hardliners of sacrificing national interests for power struggles ahead of the presidential election in June.
The nuclear negotiations between Iran and the five remaining partners – China, Germany, France, Great Britain and Russia – will continue on Tuesday in Vienna. It is about the return of the USA and Iran to the agreements of 2015. According to Ruhani, Iran is basically ready to meet its obligations under the agreement again if US President Joe Biden implements the agreement again in accordance with the treaty. Ruhani is particularly concerned with lifting the sanctions that Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump imposed on Iran after he left the deal in 2018. If the US sanctions were lifted, the chances of the reformers around Ruhani in the presidential election would increase again.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210411-99-158541 / 5
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