TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran’s Natanz nuclear power plant suffered a problem with its electricity distribution network on Sunday just hours after launching new advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium faster, state television reported. It was the latest incident to attack one of Tehran’s safest places amid negotiations over the disorderly atomic deal with world powers.
Power had been cut through ground-based workshop facilities and underground enrichment rooms, civilian nuclear program spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told Iranian state television.
“Here the power has been cut off and we don’t know the reason for the cut,” 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 “accident.”
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees Iran’s program, said it was “aware of media reports,” but declined to comment.
Malek Shariati Niasar, a lawmaker acting as a spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s energy committee, wrote on Twitter that the incident was “very suspicious” and raised concerns about possible “sabotage and infiltration.” He said lawmakers were also looking for details of the incident.
Natanz, a former target facility for the Stuxnet computer virus, was built largely underground to withstand enemy airstrikes. It became a hotbed for Western fears about Iran’s nuclear program in 2002, when satellite photos showed Iran building its underground centrifuge facility on site, about 200 miles away. kilometers (125 miles) south of the capital, Tehran.
Natanz suffered a mysterious explosion at its advanced centrifuge assembly plant in July, which authorities later described as sabotage.. Iran is now rebuilding this facility at the bottom of a nearby mountain.
Israel, Iran’s regional archenemy, is suspected of carrying out an attack, as well as launching other assaults, as world powers are now negotiating their nuclear deal with Tehran in Vienna.
Iran also blamed Israel for killing a scientist which started 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 main threat his country has suffered in recent weeks.
Israeli officials could not be contacted immediately for comment. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin landed in Israel on Sunday to talk with Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Secretary Benny Gantz.
Today, Natanz is home to the country’s largest uranium enrichment plant. In their long underground chambers, centrifuges rapidly 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-1 for enrichment.
Since President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal in 2018, Tehran has abandoned all limits on its uranium reserve. It now enriches up to 20% purity, a technical step away from 90% weapon grade levels. Iran maintains that its atomic program has peaceful purposes, but fears that Tehran has the ability to make a bomb saw the world powers reach an agreement with the Islamic Republic in 2015.
The agreement lifted economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for limiting its program and allowing International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to closely monitor its work.
On Tuesday, an Iranian cargo ship that was said to serve as a floating base for Iranian Revolutionary Guard paramilitary forces off the coast of Yemen was hit by an explosion, probably from a carpet mine. Iran has blamed Israel for the blast. That attack increased a long war of shadows on the waterways of the East by shipments to the region..
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, UAE.