FIRE BREAKS OUT AT NATANZ NUCLEAR FACILITY

A fire broke out at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility on Thursday but operations were unaffected, officials said, as a former official suggested the incident could have been an attempt to sabotage work breaching an international nuclear deal. The Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant, Iran’s main uranium enrichment site, is one of several Iranian facilities monitored by the United Nations nuclear watchdog. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) initially reported that “an incident” had occurred at the facility in the central province of Isfahan. The AEOI later published a photo showing a one-story brick building with its roof and walls partly burned and damaged. Some experts did not rule out the possibility of sabotage given the importance of the Natanz nuclear site.