“Given their high significance, centrifuge machines were moved to a safer location and are now in operation,” the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Behrouz Kamalvandi, said in an exclusive interview with Iran’s al-Alam TV on Saturday.

He added that Iran has plans to develop and manufacture centrifuge machines and to boost their security.

“Following the terrorist operation against TESA Karaj Complex, we had to tighten security measures. We moved a significant part of these machines and transferred the rest to Natanz and Isfahan,” Kamalvandi said.

He noted that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has presented two reports; one when the machines were being transferred and the other one at the time that the cameras installed at Natanz facility became operational.

Given the ambiguities that have been raised in the reports, Iran explained that all the measures taken have been in line with the agreements reached with the IAEA, the AEOI spokesman noted.

He, however, emphasized that the UN nuclear agency will have no access to data recorded by its surveillance cameras until Iran and the P4+1 group of countries reach an agreement on the revival of the 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

On Thursday, Iran’s acting ambassador to the IAEA Mohammad Reza Ghaebi said the latest report by the agency confirms that Iran had informed the IAEA on April 4 that all the machines for centrifuge production had been transferred from Karaj to Natanz, letting the inspectors verify, on the same day, that the machines were not operating.

“The Agency will have no access to information recorded on the memory of its cameras and as long as Iran has not returned to full compliance with the JCPOA, that information would not be made available to the Agency and will be stored in Iran,” Ghaebi added.

In a statement on January 31, the IAEA said Iran has informed the agency that it will move the production of centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows from TESA Karaj Complex to the central city of Isfahan.

The IAEA confirmed that Iran has informed the agency that it can adjust its surveillance and monitoring measures accordingly, noting that the production of centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows at TESA Karaj Complex has been ceased.

Under a law passed by the Iranian Parliament in December 2020, the AEOI was tasked with restricting the IAEA inspections and accelerating the development of the country’s nuclear program beyond the limits set by the 2015 Iran agreement.

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The standoff, which one official said has been going on for weeks, is in the course of being resolved, diplomats said, but it has also raised tensions with the West just as indirect talks between Iran and the United States on reviving the Iran nuclear deal have adjourned without a date set for their resumption.

It follows various moves by Iran that breach the 2015 nuclear deal or have angered Washington and its allies, ranging from enriching uranium to close to weapons-grade to failing to explain the origin of uranium particles that the U.N. nuclear watchdog found at several undeclared sites.

“They are provoking us,” said one Western diplomat who follows the International Atomic Energy Agency closely, adding that inspectors should be able to have full access next week.

Iranian officials were not immediately available for comment. The IAEA declined to comment, citing its general policy of not commenting on inspection matters.

Any reasons for Iran’s move beyond the official security and safety concerns it cited as explanations are unclear, but it has quarreled with the IAEA over access before. Iran in 2020 denied the IAEA access to two locations for snap inspections. In 2019, Iran held an IAEA inspector and seized her travel documents.

The IAEA has so far stopped short of reporting the issue to its member states and calling an emergency meeting of its 35-nation Board of Governors as it did in November 2019 when Iran briefly held the IAEA inspector who diplomats say had sought access to Natanz.

An explosion and power cut in April at Natanz, the heart of Iran’s uranium-enrichment program, appears to have damaged centrifuges at the underground, commercial-scale Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) there. The last quarterly IAEA report on Iran in May showed its enrichment output had slowed.

“Because of the accident/sabotage in April, certain accesses have been limited for safety and security reasons,” a Vienna-based diplomat said, adding that the move “had very little impact on the agency’s ability to carry out verification”.

The IAEA and Iran have discussed the issue “in order to avoid that these limitations become permanent and therefore start eroding the verification capability”, he added.

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Rouhani made the remarks while speaking at an inauguration ceremony unveiling the Defense Ministry plans.

The president reiterated Tehran’s long held position that Iran’s nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes, saying production of nuclear weapons is unacceptable.

“In the issue of defense in our country, we neither need weapons of mass destruction, nor we seek to acquire this weapon, nor do we consider it permissible; this is an explicit fatwa of the Supreme Leader.”

Rouhani said Iran is developing new technologies for domestic use.

He added, “Our nuclear power is not for developing nuclear weapons. The United States and Europe should know this and understand that Iran’s nuclear activity is completely peaceful and our enrichment is for the needs of the country in medical and energy sectors.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency announced on May 13 that based on the samples taken from the Natanz nuclear site, Iran has enriched uranium up to 63%.

Iran decided to enrich uranium to 60 percent purity after Mossad operated an act of sabotage at the Natanz nuclear site.

Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian deputy foreign minister who is leading the Iranian negotiating team in Vienna, announced on April 13 that Iran has sent a letter to the IAEA declaring that the Islamic Republic intends to start enriching uranium up to 60% purity.

On April 14, President Rouhani stated that the 60% enrichment is a response to mischiefs against Iran. “The fact that we have stated that we will operate IR-6 centrifuges in Natanz or we will increase enrichment to 60 percent, this is the answer to your malice. You cannot conspire against the Iranian nation and commit crimes in Natanz. When you commit a crime, we cut your hand.”

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“According to Iran, fluctuations of the enrichment levels… were experienced,” the IAEA said on Tuesday in a confidential report to its member states, seen by Reuters.

“The agency’s analysis of the ES (environmental samples) taken on 22 April 2021 shows an enrichment level of up to 63% U-235, which is consistent with the fluctuations of the enrichment levels (described by Iran),” it added.

On April 13, Iran said it had informed the IAEA of a plan to start the 60-percent enrichment, under which 1,000 advanced centrifuge machines will be installed at Natanz nuclear site.

The decision followed a suspected Israeli act of sabotage at the facility, which is among the sites being monitored by the UN atomic watchdog under the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Additionally, the IAEA’s report said Iran was feeding the tails from the IR-4 cascade into a cascade of 27 IR-5 and 30 IR-6s centrifuges to refine uranium to up to 5 percent.

The report was published at a time when envoys from Iran and the P4+1 group of countries — Britain, France, Russia, and China plus Germany — have been holding talks in Vienna on a potential revival of the JCPOA.

A US delegation is also in the Austrian capital, but it is not attending the discussions because the United States is not a party to the nuclear accord.

Former US president Donald Trump abandoned the deal and re-imposed the anti-Iran sanctions that the JCPOA had lifted. He also placed additional sanctions on Iran under other pretexts not related to the nuclear case as part of the “maximum pressure” campaign.

Following a year of strategic patience, Iran resorted to its legal rights stipulated in Article 26 of the JCPOA, which grants a party the right to suspend its contractual commitments in case of non-compliance by other signatories.

Now, the new US administration says it wants to compensate for Trump’s mistake and rejoin the deal, but it is showing an overriding propensity for maintaining some of the sanctions as a tool of pressure.

Tehran insists that all sanctions should first be removed in a verifiable manner before the Islamic Republic reverses its remedial measures.

Vienna talks making progress: Russia

On Wednesday, Russia’s representative to the international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said the Vienna talks “make progress.”

In another tweet hours earlier, the Russian envoy reported a meeting between the representatives from the P4+1 group of countries and the US.

“In between official meetings of the Joint Commission of the #JCPOA the participants in the Vienna talks hold on a daily basis informal meetings in various formats. For instance this evening the JCPOA participants (without #Iran) met with the US delegation,” he wrote.

Also on Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov had met with Massimo Aparo, Deputy Director General and Head of the IAEA Department of Safeguards.

During the meeting, the two sides discussed issues related to the IAEA’s safeguards systems and the use of guarantees in Iran’s nuclear facilities.

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“This is not the first time something similar has happened in Natanz, but the method of sabotage is new. This is not the first time sabotage and the use of explosives have been reported. For the past 15 years, the enemy has been constantly trying to do this,” he said.

Abbasi stated that it is estimated that the recent sabotage was the fifth big attack.

“This time they targeted the distribution network, the cables, and the spare batteries that supply power,” he explained.

The senior MP noted that the vulnerability of centrifuges is due to power outage.

“The enemy always plans to cut off the electricity itself, for example, a tower base near Natanz was destroyed once before 2011, but the tower did not fall to cut off the electricity.”

Revealing technical details about the recent sabotage act at Natanz, he said, “They (the enemies) think that we only use external electricity, but this is not the case. They now understand that we do not necessarily use electricity from outside, or if we get it from outside, it may be for other purposes. We get the main electricity from a safer place. So this time their plan was to target the end of the power distribution and the cable coming from the battery at the same time.”

Sabotage in the Natanz nuclear site occurred on April 11. Israeli media claimed that Mossad conducted the attack.

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“The Zionists think that they can permanently target the Syrian territory and do mischief in different places and in the seas and not get a response,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the commemoration ceremony of former IRGC Deputy Commander Martyr Brigadier General Hejazi on Sunday

“The measures taken in the last few days and the future actions endangering their interests will certainly bring them to their senses. The future is bright for the resistance front,” he added.

Baqeri made the remarks a few days after a Syrian missile landed no farther than 30 kilometers from Israel’s most sensitive military nuclear site Dimona in the Negev desert inside the occupied territories.

Additionally, resistance fighters based in the Gaza Strip launched almost 40 rockets into the occupied lands over the weekend, causing alert sirens to go off across Israel.

Baqeri touched on a series of incidents in Iran, including a power outage at Natanz uranium enrichment facility, as well as attacks on oil tankers in international waters, in which Israel is suspected of having a role.

“We will not announce anything about the perpetrators of the incidents and we do not know who they are, but the resistance front will give a fundamental answer to the Zionists,” he said.

Asked about Iran’s possible reaction if Israel continues its acts of mischief, he said, “It is not clear what Iran’s response will be, but the Zionist regime will not remain calm.”

Meanwhile turning to recent events in occupied lands and territories, Baqeri said that the recently taken and future moves will bring the Zionist regime to its sense.

The malicious moves taken in the last few days and future moves that certainly endanger the interests of the Zionist regime will suberize them.

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“I think Iran should take tough action. A harsh response cannot be hasty,” Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, who is also a professor of nuclear physics at Shahid Beheshti University, told the Tehran Times in an interview published on Friday.

“From now on, saboteurs and the individuals who contributed to the attack on the Natanz nuclear facility must be tracked down,” Abbasi Davani said.

The former director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) also blamed the US and Britain over the incident, saying most of the intelligence-gathering in such cases is done by American and British intelligence services, while the Israeli regime is the one that carries out the sabotage operations.

The Natanz nuclear site was hit by an attack on April 11 which Iran called “nuclear terrorism” and a “war crime”. The attack targeted the electricity distribution network of the Natanz enrichment facility and caused a blackout.

Abbasi Davani, who served as the AEOI chief from February 2011 to August 2013, further asserted that Iran reserves the right to retaliate and deliver even more destructive blows to the enemy.

In recent days, Israel has been gripped by consecutive incidents, including a missile landing near its secretive nuclear facility in Dimona and a powerful explosion rocking its Tomer factory manufacturing advanced weapons.

The incidents have been broadly speculated to be the inevitable consequences of the Israeli regime’s provocative and destructive moves.

Iranian officials also believe that Israel, through the Natanz sabotage act, intended to kill the prospects of a US return to the Iran nuclear deal, which would include the lifting of the United States’ illegal sanctions on Tehran. The deal, also called the JCPOA, was ditched by former US President Donald Trump in 2018.

Israeli officials expected to object to US return to JCPOA in DC visit

According to Israeli officials, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed a delegation traveling to Washington, DC, to stress their objection to the US return to the JCPOA and to refuse to discuss its contents.

According to a report published by Axios news website, Netanyahu convened a meeting on Thursday with the Israeli delegation to discuss the policies that will be presented in Washington.

The decision at the end of the meeting was to stress that a return to the deal would put Israel in danger, and to otherwise decline to discuss the ongoing talks in Vienna, an Israeli official said.

During the meeting, Netanyahu also stressed that Israel is not a party to the JCPOA and is therefore not bound by it in any way, adding that Israel will maintain its freedom of operation against Iran in the region.

Meanwhile, Barbara Slavin, an American foreign policy expert, has said the Israeli prime minister acts for domestic motives when he conducts acts of sabotage such as the one at the Natanz nuclear site.

“Bibi Netanyahu also has domestic political problems and he thinks these kinds of actions make him look tough,” Slavin told the Tehran Times in an interview published on Friday.

She added that given the Israeli regime’s Stuxnet cyber-attack which targeted the Iranian nuclear energy program, many political figures in Iran believe that Israel and the US are accomplices in targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities.

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“There is no need for odd speculations. Change in the mode of 60% enrichment is a technical decision and was foreseen in the DIQ which was provided to the IAEA last week before the operation,” Kazem Gharibabad wrote in a tweet on Friday morning.

There is no need for odd speculations. Change in the mode of 60% enrichment is a technical decision and was foreseen in the DIQ which was provided to the IAEA last week before the operation. 1

The remarks came after Reuters published parts of an IAEA report that indicated Iran had reduced the number of centrifuges enriching uranium to up to 60% purity at a plant at Natanz to one cluster from two.

“On 21 April 2021, the Agency verified that Iran had changed the mode by which it was producing UF6 enriched up to 60% U-235 at PFEP,” the report said, adding that Iran was now using one cascade of IR-6 centrifuges to enrich to up to 60% and feeding the tails, or depleted uranium, from that process into a cascade of IR-4 machines to enrich to up to 20%.

Reuters said the IAEA report did not say why Iran had made the change.

But Gharibabadi told reporters on Thursday evening that Iran had told the UN nuclear watchdog that the 60% enrichment would be carried out using one cascade of IR-6 machines after coupling two IR-6 and IR-4 cascades within days into beginning the 60% enrichment program.

“In the new mode, two IR-6 & IR-4 cascades are coupled and with one time UF6 injection enriched up to 5%, two different products of 60 & 20% is accumulated,” the Iranian envoy explained in another tweet.

He added that the enrichment operation became more efficient as a result of the move.

In the new mode, two IR-6 & IR-4 cascades are coupled and with one time UF6 injection enriched up to 5%, two different products of 60 & 20% is accumulated. Enrichment operation became more efficient.

Iran announced the shift to 60% enrichment in response to a blast at the Natanz nuclear facility earlier this month that the Islamic Republic has blamed on Israel.

Tehran had agreed under a 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers to limit its uranium enrichment to 3.67%. However, a 2018 US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, or the JCPOA, prompted Iran to take what it calls “remedial measures” aimed at bringing the US and other parties into compliance with the deal.

Under its remedial measures, Iran has gradually reduced its nuclear obligations as part of its rights enshrined in Articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA. Enriching uranium to 20 and 60% were the latest of Iran’s moves under that process.

Iran and the remaining parties to the JCPOA – Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – began talks early this month to restore the JCPOA by bringing the US, under its new leadership, into compliance with the deal. No concrete agreement has emerged from the talks so far.

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An Israeli military spokesman cited by Reuters said the projectile had come down in the early hours of Thursday in the Dimona area in the Negev desert inside the occupying territories, where the regime operates the hugely controversial installation.

The spokesman identified the missile as “an SA-5” — a long-range projectile handled by Syria’s Russian S-200 missile systems.

The missile, however, “did not hit the reactor, landing some 30 kilometers (19 miles) away,” the agency cited the spokesman as saying.

According to the Israeli military, missile sirens went off in the area, and a Reuters correspondent, who was about 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of Dimona, reported hearing the sound of an explosion minutes before the military tweeted that the alarms had gone off.

Israeli and Western media outlets soon began to speculate about Iran’s possible involvement in the incident.

The Times of Israel noted how the missile incident came shortly after Iran warned that it will retaliate for an Israeli act of sabotage against its Natanz nuclear facility. Earlier this month, the incident cut the power across the facility but did not lead to any casualties and damages or any complications.

Soon after the Israeli operation, Iran began enriching uranium up to 60-percent in purity, with President Hassan Rouhani calling it a first retaliatory step. Iran’s Ambassador to international organizations Kazem Gharibabadi also warned that the occupying regime “will finally – and soon – realize that they must never threaten Iranians.”

According to Israeli media outlets, the regime has been reinforcing missile systems around the Dimona facility and the Red Sea port Eilat in the occupying territories in anticipation of a possible long-range missile or drone attack.

The Associated Press reported from the occupied holy city of Jerusalem al-Quds in a coverage that was also republished by The Washington Post that “the incident, marking the most serious violence between Israel and Syria in years, pointed to likely Iranian involvement.”

Iran, however, has not yet issued any reaction to the reports.

Iran maintains a military advisory presence in Syria, helping the Arab country against foreign-backed militancy and terrorism.

Syria and Israel are technically at war, due to Tel Aviv’s 1967-present occupation of the former’s Golan Heights.

AP also said “explosions were reported across” the occupied territories following the missile incident.

The Israeli regime is the sole owner of a military nuclear program and arsenal in the Middle East, with hundreds of nuclear warheads.

Dimona has for long been identified as the epicenter of the regime’s military nuclear program.

The regime has, however, always avoided scrutiny by the international organizations thanks to its own sheer resentment of accountability and protection by its arch-ally, the United States.

Tel Aviv has even been targeting nuclear activities across the region, including Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program, on numerous occasions.

Last year too, Natanz was targeted in another terrorist move to blow up parts of the installation in an attack that Tel Aviv has been suspected of orchestrating.

Over the years, the regime has assassinated as many as seven Iranian nuclear scientists.

Israel’s Channel 12, however, carried a broadcast recently, warning that the regime was “nearing the point where Iran will be forced to respond” to its terrorist activities.

The London-based Middle East Monitor news website also interpreted the Dimona incident as a likely instance of retaliation on the part of the Islamic Republic. It likened the missile incident to an earlier incident involving an Israeli-owned vessel.

“[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, therefore, may have pushed Iran to retaliate, as it did when it targeted an Israeli-owned ship days after the Natanz incident,” the website wrote.

Tehran has not made any claims about the maritime incident that followed the sabotage at Natanz.

Syrian air defences intercept Israeli attack

Reporting on the aftermath of the Thursday missile incident, Reuters cited the Israeli military as saying that it in response to the launch, it had attacked several missile batteries in Syria, including the one that fired the projectile that fell near Dimona.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), meanwhile, said Syrian air defenses intercepted the Israeli attack that targeted areas in the Damascus countryside.

“Air defenses intercepted the rockets and downed most of them,” the agency said. However, four soldiers were injured in the attack and some material damage was caused, it added.

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The Natanz nuclear site was hit by an attack on April 11 which Iran called “nuclear terrorism” and a “war crime”. The attack targeted the electricity distribution network of the Natanz enrichment facility and caused a blackout.

Following the attack, Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its plan to start enriching uranium to 60 percent purity, under which 1,000 advanced centrifuges will be installed at the site.
The most obvious explanation of the attack is an expression of Israel’s opposition to the Vienna talks aimed at returning the US to participation in the 2015 nuclear agreement, known as JCPOA or the P5+1 Agreement, especially as there were disclosures that talks were ‘constructive,’ with optimism about setting the stage for direct negotiations between Iran and the US to resume soon, Falk said.
The talks began early this month with the participation of the remaining parties to the JCPOA, namely Iran, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, while excluding the US, which unilaterally left the deal three years ago.

Falk described as “reasonable” the call by Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), on the international community as well as the IAEA to deal with the “nuclear terrorism” that targets Iran’s facilities.

The American professor said the call points to the failures of the IAEA to act as a responsible international institution.

“Iran has long been victimized by Israeli nuclear terrorism without any appropriate international response against such serious wrongdoing,” he said.
“A condemnation of the attack as an instance of ‘nuclear terrorism’ would constitute an important step by the IAEA to establish its credibility,” Falk said.

“For  the IAEA and Washington to refrain from criticism of the Natanz attack plays into Israel’s hands, particularly if allowed to disrupt the gaining momentum toward ending sanctions and restoring US membership in JCPOA.”
Commenting on Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s remarks in which he warned the US that neither sanctions nor acts of sabotage can serve as leverage in negotiations, Falk stressed that Tehran cannot be intimidated.

Iran has been subjected to “unlawful sanctions and coercive threats for decades, and yet has withstood these unlawful encroachments on its sovereign rights”, he said.

“I see no indications that Iran will be intimidated on this occasion to any greater extent than in responding to past provocations,” he said, stressing that “Iran has shown its subtle understanding of how to respond without itself being dangerously provocative”.

Falk said the administration of Joe Biden is focused on taking steps to bring the COVID-19 pandemic to a rapid end and restore the American economy as quickly as possible.

The Biden administration, Falk said, seems “eager to avoid being accused by pro-Israeli sentiments in Congress and within the Israeli Lobby of neglecting Israeli concerns about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program”.
“In effect, there exist cross-cutting pressures that make it difficult to predict how the United States leadership will respond. So far, its failure to distance itself from the Israeli provocation is a disturbing indication that it will again allow its policy to be pushed in dysfunctional directions so as not to displease Israel’s militant supporters.”

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