Natanz incident puts Iran nuclear talks in jeopardy
ISRAEL ‘WILL NOT ALLOW TEHRAN TO GET NUCLEAR ARMS’
Iran blamed Israel yesterday for an attack on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges — sabotage that imperils ongoing talks over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal and brings a shadow war between the two countries into the light.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, but Israeli media widely reported that the country had orchestrated a devastating cyberattack that caused a blackout at the nuclear facility. Israeli officials rarely acknowledge operations carried out by the country’s secret military units or its Mossad intelligence agency.
While the nature of the attack and the extent of the damage at Natanz remains unclear, a former Iranian official said the assault set off a fire while a spokesman mentioned a “possible minor explosion.”
Official’s legs broken
The facility seemed to be in such disarray that, following the attack, a prominent nuclear spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi walking above ground at the site fell 7 metres through an open ventilation shaft covered by aluminum debris, breaking both his legs and hurting his head.
The attack also further strains relations between the US, which under President Joe Biden is now negotiating in Vienna to reenter the nuclear accord, and Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to stop the deal at all costs.
Genocidal goal
Netanyahu met yesterday with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, whose arrival in Israel coincided with the first word of the attack. The two took no questions. “My policy as prime minister of Israel is clear: I will never allow Iran to obtain the nuclear capability to carry out its genocidal goal of eliminating Israel,” Netanyahu said. “And Israel will continue to defend itself against Iran’s aggression and terrorism.’’
At an earlier news conference at Israel’s Nevatim air base, Austin declined to say whether the Natanz attack could impede the Biden administration’s efforts to re-engage with Iran in its nuclear programme.
But German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas expressed concern that it could affect the talks. “All of what we are hearing from Tehran is not a positive contribution to this,’’ Maas said.
Iran’s nuclear programme has been targeted by diplomatic efforts and sabotage attacks over the last decade, with the latest incident striking its underground Natanz facility.
The attack on Sunday at Natanz comes as world powers try to negotiate a return by Iran and the US to Tehran’s atomic accord. The sabotage threatens to upend those negotiations and further heighten regional tensions across the Mideast.
FROM ‘ATOMS FOR PEACE’ TO PROLIFERATION
Iran’s nuclear programme actually began with the help of the United States. Under its “Atoms for Peace” programme, America supplied a test reactor that came online in Tehran in 1967 under the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. That help ended once Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution overthrew the shah.
In the 1990s, Iran expanded its programme, including secretly buying equipment from Pakistan’s top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Khan helped create Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme and his proliferation aided North Korea in obtaining the atomic bombs it has today. Tehran insists its atomic programme is peaceful. However, Iran “carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device” in a “structured programme” through the end of 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said. That’s an assessment shared by US intelligence agencies and the State Department. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu long has alleged Iran continues to want nuclear weapons to this day.
IRAN’S NUCLEAR SITES
Natanz, in Iran’s central Isfahan province, hosts the country’s main uranium enrichment facility. Iran has one operating nuclear power plant in Bushehr, which it opened with Russia’s help in 2011. Iran previously reconfigured its Arak heavy-water reactor so it couldn’t produce plutonium. Its Fordo enrichment site is also dug deep into a mountainside. Tehran also still operates the Tehran research reactor.
DIPLOMACY TO DISARRAY
Iran struck the nuclear deal in 2015 with the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia and China. The deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, saw Iran dramatically limit its enrichment of uranium under the watch of IAEA inspectors in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. The small stockpile of less-enriched uranium blocked Iran from having enough material to build a nuclear bomb if it chose.
Then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, in part over the deal not addressing Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its support of allied militant groups in the Mideast. Since the US withdrawal, Iran has in response abandoned all the deal’s limits of its uranium enrichment. It spins advanced centrifuges, grows its stockpile and enriches up to 20 per cent purity a technical step away from weaponsgrade levels of 90 per cent.
President Joe Biden, who took office in January, has said he’s willing to re-enter the nuclear deal. Countries began negotiations in Vienna last week seeking to find a way forward. Israel has vowed not to see the deal revived.
‘NUCLEAR TERRORISM’
With the sabotage of Natanz on Sunday, the head of Iran’s civilian nuclear programme described it as “nuclear terrorism.”
Natanz hosts the country’s main uranium enrichment facility. Iran has one operating nuclear power plant in Bushehr.
Iran struck the nuclear deal in 2015 with the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia and China.
But it marked merely the latest attack targeting the Iranian programme.
Natanz found itself first targeted by a major cyberattack in the late 2000s. Called Stuxnet, the virus attacked control units for centrifuges at Natanz, causing the sensitive devices to spin out of control and destroy themselves. Experts widely attribute the attack to America and Israel, as does Iran.
Another sabotage attack targeted Natanz in July. An explosion ripped apart an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at the site. Afterward, Iran said it would rebuild the site deep inside a nearby mountain. Satellite photos show that work continues.
Then there have been a series of assassinations targeting Iranian nuclear scientists over the last decade. The killings involved bombings and shootings. The most-recent killing saw the scientist who founded Iran’s military nuclear programme decades ago shot in November by what authorities have described as a remote-controlled machine gun that later exploded. Iran blames Israel for those slayings as well.
IRAN VOWS REVENGE ON ISRAEL FOR NATANZ
Iran blames Israel for the sabotage incident and will exact revenge, state TV quoted its foreign minister as saying. Iran’s semiofficial Nournews website said the person who caused an electricity outage in one of the production halls at the underground uranium enrichment plant had been identified. “Necessary measures are being taken to arrest this person,” the website reported.
Yesterday, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif explicitly blamed Israel. “The Zionists want to take revenge because of our progress in the way to lift sanctions ... They have publicly said that they will not allow this. But we will take our revenge against the Zionists,” Zarif was quoted by state TV as saying.
Multiple Israeli media outlets have quoted unnamed intelligence sources as saying the country’s Mossad spy service carried out a successful sabotage operation at the underground Natanz complex, potentially setting back enrichment work there by months. Israel has not formally commented on the incident. “Iran’s response will be revenge against the Zionist regime in its place and time,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told a news conference yesterday.
PRESSURE GROWS ON TEHRAN
The incident took place a day after Tehran, which has insisted it wants only peaceful nuclear energy not nuclear weapons, started new advanced enrichment centrifuges at Natanz. The incident also coincided with a visit to Israel by US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, who pledged the Biden administration’s support for its Middle East ally. “Im committed to continuing our close consultations on threats posed by Iran and to strengthening Israels security,” Austin tweeted late on Sunday.
TEHRAN TO REPLACE CENTRIFUGES
Khatibzadeh said that the incident could be deemed an “act against humanity”, adding it had caused “no contamination or casualties” at the site. “Our nuclear experts are assessing the damage but I can assure you that Iran will replace damaged uranium enrichment centrifuges in Natanz with advanced ones,” Khatibzadeh said. “All of the centrifuges that went out of circuit at Natanz site were of the IR1 type,” he said, referring to Iran’s first generation of enrichment machines more vulnerable to outages.
EXTENT OF DAMAGE UNCLEAR AT SITE
The extent of the damage to Natanz remains unclear at the moment. Iran has yet to broadcast any images of the facility on state television. It’s unclear if any of the damage will be able to be seen from the air as its centrifuge halls are all underground. Nasa fire satellites detected no visible blasts at the facility.
The long-term effects on Iran’s atomic programme as a whole also remain unclear. If the attack halts centrifuges at Natanz, they still spin at Fordo. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, vowed Sunday to keep advancing the country’s nuclear technology.
SINGING AMONG THE CENTRIFUGES
The sabotage comes at a sensitive time for outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, whose administration is trying to claw back its signature diplomatic achievement through the Vienna talks. Term-limited from seeking office again, the relative-moderate Rouhani will bow out to whoever wins Iran’s upcoming June presidential election. If Iran can’t regain the benefits of the deal, it could boost hardliners within the republic. Already, some media outlets demanded for Rouhani to pull out of Vienna talks.
The Natanz sabotage also further links Iran’s nuclear programme to the propaganda aired by state TV urging the country to resist outside pressure. Before the sabotage, state TV aired a segment showing men in white lab coats singing among Natanz’s silver centrifuges, some holding pictures of the scientists slain in the earlier assassinations.
“We are proud and victorious in science,” the men sang. “We believe in ourselves and don’t pin hopes to foreigners.” The singers likely weren’t nuclear scientists, however. Iran since the killing has carefully blurred their images, worried about them being targeted again.