TEHRAN -- An official at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) has rejected claims by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Tehran had not submitted the data storage device of a camera destroyed in a sabotage attack at the centrifuge-parts workshop in Karaj.
On Friday, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi displayed the camera system similar to those used in Karaj at a press conference in Vienna.
He claimed that critical footage from a surveillance camera at the facility had gone missing though he acknowledged that the camera -- one of the four IAEA had placed at the facility -- “had been destroyed” in the June sabotage attack.
Iran removed the cameras, along with the destroyed one, and showed them to the nuclear agency inspectors. However, Grossi on Friday asked for the so-called missing memory card of the destroyed camera.
“Where is it? So I’m hopeful they are going to come up with an answer because it’s very strange that it disappears,” he said at a presser.
Later Friday, Nour News which is close to the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, quoted an informed AEOI official as explaining that the camera’s data storage device had also been destroyed in attack.
“The camera’s data storage device, wanted by the IAEA chief, has been destroyed in the sabotage operation,” the unnamed official said. “The IAEA must answer why it does not use its capabilities to prevent such sabotage attacks with known origins.”
The official noted that the IAEA, in addition to its supervisory duties, has safeguarding responsibilities toward its members, “and in this case, it should be held accountable for not preventing the threat against Iran’s nuclear sites and not taking effective action in this regard”.
The occupying regime of Israel, which has assassinated at least seven Iranian nuclear scientists, is the prime suspect in several sabotage operations that have targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities over the past few years.
Grossi’s claims came after the IAEA and Iran agreed to reinstall surveillance cameras inside the Karaj site.
Iran and the five remaining parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) resumed talks in Vienna last month after a five-month pause.
An Iranian security official on Saturday warned about “acts of mischief” by the Zionist regime amid “relatively successful” negotiations being held in the Austrian capital.
“Some unevaluated news, which we will take into consideration in a separate opportunity, suggests that the Zionist regime is examining to conduct acts of mischief against the Islamic Republic,” the informed official told Nour News.
“The probability of this occurrence is not far from expected given the regime’s acts of mischief in the past aimed at damaging the talks between Iran and other JCPOA members,” he added, referring to reports about an order by Zionist war minister Benny Gantz to prepare for the possibility of a military strike on Iran.
The negotiations are aimed at removing the sanctions that the United States reimposed against
Tehran in 2018 after leaving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Iran’s top negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, announced on Twitter Friday that “good progress” had been made, and that the discussions would continue after a “break of a few days”.
The security official said, “The relatively successful trend of the Vienna talks can strengthen the motivation of the Zionist regime to carry out acts of mischief.”
He warned that a malicious Israeli act, which could be designed to mount pressure on Iran to give in to the West’s excessive demands, would definitely afflict the United States as the Tel Aviv regime is a strategic partner of Washington and the Western countries participating in the Vienna talks.
“If the Zionist regime engages in an act of mischief against Iran’s nuclear facilities, it will inevitably have a negative and deterrent effect on Iran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),” he said.
“Based on their inherent duties, the country’s military and security forces will take any possible threats seriously and increase the level of necessary preparedness to deal with them,” the official added.