Natanz to Get Stronger Enrichment Machines

Iran: Zionist Regime Should Await Revenge

Date: 12 April 2021 - 21:34

News ID: ۸۹۱۱۸

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Iran’s foreign minister on Monday said the occupying regime of Israel is responsible for a weekend blackout at a key Iranian nuclear  facility, an incident that a Zionist media outlet reported was the result of a cyberattack carried out by the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency.
Iranian officials said Sunday that the nuclear site, Natanz, had suffered a mysterious electrical outage, which the head of Iran’s civilian nuclear agency later blamed on "nuclear terrorism” and another official called a "crime against humanity.” Suspicion immediately fell on the Zionist regime, which for years has carried out a terrorist campaign of explosions, assassinations and other forms of sabotage aimed at Iran’s nuclear program.
A security source said on Monday that the key individual responsible for the Natanz incident has been identified.
"Necessary measures are being taken to arrest the main element behind the disruption in the power system of Natanz complex,” Nour News quoted the source as saying.
In comments quoted Monday by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif said that "the Zionists want to take revenge on the Iranian people for their success in lifting the oppressive sanctions, but we will not allow it and we will take revenge on the Zionists themselves.”
On Sunday, the Zionist public broadcaster Kan, citing unnamed Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources, reported that the occupying regime of was behind the cyberattack on Natanz and that the "Mossad was involved.”
Yoel Guzansky, former head of the Iran desk of the occupying regime’s security council, said that reports of Mossad involvement in the Natanz blackout indicate a rare move to circumvent military censor and unofficially claim responsibility.
"If it was authorized, Israel wants its name to be connected to the attack and to gain something, either vis-a-vis Iran or the U.S. If it’s unauthorized, it’s a security breach problem, but either way, it’s a problem,” he said. "It’s not healthy to brag, but you also force your opponent to do something, and I’m sure they will.”
While Iranian officials acknowledged that centrifuges were damaged, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Monday that emergency power systems were put into operation after the attack and that "enrichment in Natanz has not stopped and is moving forward vigorously”.
In a news briefing Monday, Saeed Khatibzadeh, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, called the attack on Natanz "a bold act of nuclear terrorism on Iranian soil” and among the "crimes against humanity which the Israeli regime has been doing for many years now”.
There were no casualties or nuclear contamination as a result of the attack, but it could have "resulted in a catastrophic situation,” he said.
He added that some of the older-generation centrifuges were damaged but would be replaced by newer ones.
On Saturday, the day before the blackout and Iran’s national day for nuclear technology, new, more-modern centrifuges were tested at the Natanz facility, with capacity to refine uranium at a much faster rate.
A senior Biden administration official said: "We have seen reports of an incident at the Natanz enrichment facility in Iran. The United States had no involvement, and we have nothing to add to speculation about the causes.”
The attack on Natanz came less than a week after Iran and other countries attended talks in Vienna aimed at lifting inhuman U.S. sanctions on Tehran.
Khatibzadeh said, "If the aim was to limit Iran’s nuclear capability, I have to say that on the contrary, all the centrifuges that went out of order due to the incident were of the IR1 type, and they are being replaced with more advanced ones.”
"If the goal was to disrupt the removal of oppressive sanctions against the Iranian nation, they would certainly not achieve this goal, and no one would fall into the cunning trap they designed,” he said.
"However with this action, the occupying regime of al-Quds tried to avenge the patience and wise behavior of the Iranian people in the course of removing the sanctions,” the spokesman said.
Israel "should know that Iran will exact revenge on this regime in the right place at the right time”, Khatibzadeh added.
The Washington Post said the escalation of a shadow war between the Zionist regime and Iran could threaten what both Washington and Tehran have said is modest progress in the negotiations. The occupying regime is staunchly opposed to the nuclear accord.
An explosion last week that damaged an Iranian ship in the Red Sea occurred just hours before Iran and other countries launched the Vienna talks. In July, a mysterious explosion at the Natanz facility was also described by Iran as sabotage.