Iran on Saturday named a man it wants arrested in connection with a recent explosion and power outage at its main Natanz nuclear plant, as talks got underway in Vienna on Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
“Reza Karimi, the perpetrator of this sabotage… has been identified” by Iran’s intelligence ministry, state TV said. It said the suspect had fled Iran before last Sunday’s blast that the Islamic Republic has blamed on arch-foe Israel.
Iran’s Al Alam TV again showed that its problem isn’t with Israel — but with all Jews.
An article railing against the UAE cooperation with Israel was illustrated with a photo of a bearded Jew in front of a menorah in Dubai. A caption read: “A dangerous and suspicious scheme revealed by the normal Gulf relations path”.
“…Why on earth would the administration tell the Iranian leaders before negotiations that it is ready to lift sanctions while it has not yet received anything in return from the mullahs? The Iranian regime, of course, immediately scented weakness and desperation and began increasing its demands. The Biden administration then offered $1 billion to the mullahs in exchange for the regime freezing its production of 20% uranium enrichment. No, Iran wants more. Its leaders demanded $30 billion for one month of freeze.”
Within hours of Iran proudly announcing the launch of its latest centrifuges, a power blackout damaged some of the precious machines at its site in Natanz.
Iran has described this as an act of “terrorism” and pointed the finger at Israel. But there is still mystery over the cause.
In Israel, some reports have suggested a cyber-attack might have been responsible but Iran has talked of “infiltrators” amid reports of an explosion linked to the power generator.
“Two intelligence officials briefed on the damage said it had been caused by a large explosion that completely destroyed the independent — and heavily protected — internal power system that supplies the underground centrifuges that enrich uranium,” The New York Times reported. “The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a classified Israeli operation, said that the explosion had dealt a severe blow to Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and that it could take at least nine months to restore Natanz’s production.”
The Iranian foreign minister has said his country will “take revenge” for an attack on an underground nuclear site, for which it has blamed Israel.
Iranian officials said the Natanz uranium enrichment plant was the target of “nuclear terrorism” on Sunday, after initially reporting a power failure.
New advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium had just been activated there.
Israel has not commented, but public radio cited intelligence sources as saying it was a Mossad cyber operation.
A nuclear facility in Iran was hit by a “terrorist act” a day after it unveiled new advanced uranium centrifuges, a top nuclear official says.
He did not say who was to blame but urged the international community to deal with nuclear terrorism.
Israeli media suggest the incident was a result of an Israeli cyber attack.
Last year, a fire broke out at the Natanz underground facility, which the authorities alleged was the result of cyber sabotage.
A treasure trove of documents seized by German police and obtained by the JC reveals the extent to which Tehran’s spies have infiltrated Europe.
The documents were found in a hire car used as a mobile intelligence station by Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian spy chief who in February was sentenced to 20 years in prison for masterminding a failed bomb attack in Paris in 2018.
The material discloses a sophisticated network of regime agents that stretches across at least 22 cities all over the continent, along with plans for terror attacks using explosives, acid and toxic pathogenic substances.
The United States has joined talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear deal, which the Trump administration abandoned in 2018.
President Joe Biden has said he wants to return to the landmark accord.
But the six remaining state parties need to find a way for him to lift the sanctions imposed by his predecessor and for Iran to return to the agreed limits on its nuclear programme.
Iran has said it will not meet the US face to face until that happens.
After decades of portraying Israel as their mortal enemy, the Arabs have finally woken up to the fact that it is two Islamic countries, Turkey and Iran, that are actually threatening their security and stability.
The Arabs are now seeking to draw the world’s attention to these Turkish and Iranian threats.
The Arabs are warning the world that Turkey and Iran are funding and arming terrorists, that they a major threat to stability in the Middle East, and that they keep meddling in the affairs of Arab countries.
“…In the agreement with Iran regarding the investment project, China has also included a clause for deployment of its troops there; and more than 5,000 Chinese troops will be deployed in Iran, and a [military] base will be built for them. Before this, China has also put its signature on investment projects with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which shows that China is implementing a plan to increase its influence in the Middle East…”
China last week signed a $400 billion, 30-year investment deal with Iran. American sanctions against Iran are effectively nullified. China’s state press declared, “As it stands, this deal will totally upend the prevailing geopolitical landscape in the West Asian region that has for so long been subject to US hegemony.” As former Indian diplomat MK Bhadrakumar reports in Asia Times, Chinese state media declare that China will trade with Iran and other Central Asian currencies in its own currency, bypassing the dollar-based world banking system. U.S. leverage against Iran is gone. It was obvious for the past year that China might play the Iran card.
The Biden administration is ratcheting up its appeasement policies towards the Iranian regime in an apparent effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal — which by the way, Iran never signed.
US President Joe Biden made his intention to return to the nuclear deal public before he took office; after, he appointed as Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman — a key negotiator in the talks which led to the nuclear deal in 2015 during the Obama administration. Biden actually publicized Sherman’s professed accomplishment…
With the Biden administration seemingly keen to recommence negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, fresh evidence is emerging that Iran’s regime is up to its old tricks by attempting to conceal key elements of the programme from UN inspectors.
Iran has a long and undistinguished history of seeking to conceal the existence of key elements of its nuclear programme dating back to 2002, when a group of Iranian dissidents first revealed the existence of the Natanz nuclear enrichment site.
I suspect that the eventual disengagement from the Middle East as intended by the Obama administration is back in play.
On March 27, China and Iran signed a comprehensive strategic 25-year partnership agreement on economic and security cooperation. The agreement was signed in Tehran, where China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi was visiting as part of his tour of the Middle East.
Details of the agreement were not immediately published. The Iranian Foreign Ministry communicated that it was a “roadmap for cooperation” and that no “contracts” were included in it. “Prospects for cooperation, whether economic, political, cultural or strategic, have not been quantified, therefore it does not include numbers on investment or financial and monetary resources,” a statement of the Iranian Foreign Ministry reported.
