Iran accuses Israel of "nuclear terrorism" over attack on its Natanz plant
Washington and Tehran have begun a tepid rapprochement to salvage the all but dead 2015 nuclear pact following Donald Trump's withdrawal in 2018. The former US president opted for a policy of "maximum pressure" and re-imposed economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic. For its part, Iran has been moving away from the pact, enriching uranium to 20 per cent, a far cry from the figure agreed in the pact (3.67 per cent).
Last week, meetings took place in Vienna, in which Iran and the other signatories to the pact (Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany) took part. The United States, however, did not contribute directly as it has withdrawn from the pact. Even so, there were some indirect contacts between Washington and Tehran through intermediaries.
The main drawback to getting back on track with the nuclear deal is that both Iran and the US are waiting for a gesture of goodwill, and neither is willing to make the first step. But while these talks may herald a rapprochement between the two powers, an attack on an Iranian nuclear plant could once again cloud the process.
At first the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, Behrouz Kamalvandi, reported "an incident" at the Natanz nuclear plant, which shortly afterwards turned out to be a "sabotage" and has finally been described by the Iranian authorities as an "act of nuclear terrorism" attributed to Israel. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has directly targeted senior Israeli officials, accusing them of "impeding multilateral efforts to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which would lead to lifting United States sanctions on Iran".
Israel does not usually respond to such accusations, but on this occasion the national press reported unanimously from the first moments that what happened at Natanz was a cyber-attack and not an electrical problem. The incident came just hours after Iran announced that it had commissioned 164 new centrifuges at the plant. These are the IR-6 and IR-5 models, which, according to the Iranians, were reportedly not damaged by the attack.
Nournews, a media outlet linked to the Iranian security apparatus, quoted an unnamed source in the intelligence ministry as saying that the person who caused the blackout by disrupting the power system has been identified. "Necessary measures are being taken to arrest this person who caused the electricity outage in one of the halls at the Natanz site,”said the ministry official, who did not directly identify the person responsible for the attack.
Doubts about Israeli involvement have been constant from the moment the "power failure" was first reported. The Natanz plant suffered another explosion last July that caused extensive destruction of equipment and was again linked to the Jewish state. A Middle East intelligence source consulted by The New York Times confirmed that this was caused by Israel's planting of "a powerful bomb". Iranian President Hassan Rohani also accused Israel of assassinating Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, one of the "fathers" of Iran's nuclear programme.
The attack comes nearly a week after an Iranian ship was allegedly attacked in the Red Sea, an attack that the New York Times has attributed to Israel. The Vienna meetings are scheduled to continue this week, and this new incident is likely to be yet another obstacle in the negotiating process.