The spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran claimed on Sunday that the fire last month at the Natanz nuclear facility was not an accident.
The explosion that led to the fire at Natanz “was a result of sabotage operations,” Reuters reported Behrouz Kamalvandi as having told Iran’s Al-Alam News Network. “Security authorities will reveal in due time the reason behind the blast.”
The Natanz facility is one of the sites being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose director-general, Rafael Grossi, said on Saturday that he planned to visit Tehran on Monday to push for greater access for inspectors to two additional sites.
“Iran has not opposed access to its nuclear facilities, but the IAEA’s questions and allegations should be based on serious evidence and documents,” said Kamalvandi, according to Reuters.
IDF Lt. Col. (res.) Raphael Ofek, an expert in nuclear physics and technology who served as a senior Israeli intelligence analyst, wrote last month that both Israel and the United States “have a clear interest in halting Iran’s dogged quest for the bomb, and both likely possess technological and intelligence capabilities sufficiently advanced to allow them to inflict severe damage on Iran.”
“Thus it cannot be ruled out that one or both were involved in the explosion at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility on July 2,” he wrote.
