Iran blames UN for nuclear sabotage

P OWER lines to Iran’s most controversial nuclear enrichment plant were blown up a month ago, according to its atomic energy chief, who alleged yesterday that the UN nuclear watchdog may have been infiltrated by “terrorists and saboteurs”.

The accusation coincides with Israeli warnings about the need to stem Iran’s nuclear programme with a threat of force, as well as new diplomatic efforts to secure better inspections and an end to work that could be used to develop atomic weapons.

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had no immediate response, but Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani’s comments seemed certain to overshadow those efforts.

He told the agency’s annual assembly that power lines from the city of Qom to the underground Fordow plant had been blown up on August 17, and “the same act” had been carried out earlier on power lines to Iran’s main enrichment plant, near Natanz.

The plants use centrifuges to “enrich” uranium to a higher concentration of the fissile material that can be used in nuclear power plants or nuclear weapons.

Fordow worries the West most as it produces uranium of 20-percent fissile purity, more than needed for power plants and only a short technical step from the 90 percent needed for a warhead.

On August 18, Abbasi-Davan said, a nuclear agency inspector had asked for an unannounced visit to Fordow, built 80m below ground to better protect it against enemy strikes.

“Does this visit have any connection to that detonation? Who, other than the IAEA inspector, can have access to the complex in such a short time to record and report failures?” he asked.

“Terrorists and saboteurs might have intruded the agency,” he said, according to an Iranian translation of his speech in Fars.

Abbasi-Davani did not say who he believed was behind the attacks, although Iran has often accused Israel and Tehran’s Western foes of trying to sabotage its nuclear programme.

At least four scientists associated with the programme have been assassinated since 2010, most recently in January, and the Stuxnet computer virus was used to cause malfunctions in Iran’s nuclear enrichment equipment.

But Abbasi-Davani did for the first time publicly suggest that the agency might be complicit in sabotage.

An IAEA report last month indicated that inspectors had visited Fordow on August 18, but it did not refer to any damage. Instead it said that Iran had doubled the number of centrifuges at Fordow, despite UN sanctions, Western attempts to limit Iran’s oil exports and the threat of an Israeli attack.

A Western diplomat said the allegation that the agency may have been infiltrated by terrorists was “insulting”.. – Reuters