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2021 Natanz Incident refers to a suspected attack on the Natanz nuclear site in Iran. [1] The Natanz nuclear facility is located in the wilderness of the province of Isfahan, in central Iran. This site is scouted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog. [2]
Iran's nuclear program was long suspected of aiming to create a nuclear weapon, with multiple countries, including the US and Israel, using methods to try and prevent this.
Iran initially denied they were creating a nuclear weapon, and insisted their nuclear technology was only being used for peaceful purposes such as power generation. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons. This fatwa is viewed with suspicion in the West, with some experts questioning its existence, impact or applicability. [3]
A cyber attack known as Operation Olympic Games was carried out by the US and Israel against Iran's nuclear facilities, specifically Natanz. This operation used the Stuxnet computer virus, which caused the destruction of hundreds of centrifuges and other damage. The virus was first discovered in 2010, but it is thought to have been in development since at least 2005. [4] [5]
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, repealed by the US in 2018, granted sanctions relief in exchange for destruction of technology and material that could aid nuclear weapons development. [6] [7] [8] After the JCPOA was repealed by the US, Iran started openly ignoring its provisions, enriching uranium beyond the specified limits. [9] By 2022, Iran was "speaking openly on nuclear bomb prospects". [10]
Natanz nuclear facility is part of Iran's nuclear program. It is located in the central province of Isfahan, near a major highway, and is generally recognized as Iran's central facility for uranium enrichment. [11] This site was made underground, some 250 km (155 miles) south of the Iranian capital Tehran, to resist enemy airstrikes. [12]
On 10 April 2021, Iran unveiled feeding gas to several all-Iranian centrifuges, including 164 IR6 machines, 30 IR5 centrifuges, 30 IR6s centrifuges, and mechanical tests on the advanced IR9 machine on the National Nuclear Technology Day occasion. [13] On 11 April 2021, early on Sunday, the day after the Iran unveiling, a Blackout hit the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran [14] which caused damage to the electrical distribution grid. [1] The blackout seemed to be caused by a planned blast. The Natanz incident happened almost a week after Iran and Biden tried to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which President Trump had unilaterally withdrawn. [2]
There were different reports of the attack, including a cyber-attack and an explosion. [15] Iran, citing security issues, refused to reveal additional information. Israel publicly rejected to approve or deny any responsibility for the incident. [1] The US and Israel intelligence officials claimed that Israel was behind a cyber-attack at the time of this incident. [16] [8]
Ali Akbar Salehi, the AEOI head claimed that the incident was an act of "sabotage" and "nuclear terrorism". [17]
Several Israeli media claimed that the operation was carried out by the Israeli Mossad spy service. [18] [19] Israel had expressed dissatisfaction over Biden's revival of the nuclear deal, which the United States unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA on May 8, 2018. [20] Iran does not recognize the existence of Israel and often refers to it as the "Zionist state." [21]
On the morning of the accident, Lloyd Austin, the American defense secretary, met with Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz and viewed Israeli air and missile defense systems and its F-35 combat aircraft. It was not clear whether they had discussed the Natanz attack. [22]
Kamalvandi, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman, said that the accident caused no casualties nor pollution. [1]
Several Israeli media say that the blackout has allotted a hard blow to Iran's uranium enrichment.
Alireza Zakani said that the damage was great and that several thousand centrifuges were damaged, on the Ofoq TV channel. [23]
According to The New York Times, two intelligence officials claimed: it had been made by the accident that destroyed the internal power system responsible for feeding underground uranium enrichment centrifuges. Israel has taken action ranging against Iran, from cyberattacks to the killings of several Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years. [8]
On November 17, 2021, the IAEA released their quarterly safeguards report regarding verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015). The report concludes that the number of enriching IR-1 cascades and IR-2m cascades at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) appear to have almost fully recovered from a sabotage incident in April. Iran installed 31 cascades of IR-1 centrifuges, six cascades of IR-2m centrifuges, and two cascades of IR-4 centrifuges at the FEP. Of those, as of November 13, 28 IR-1 cascades, six IR-2m cascades, and two IR-4 cascades “were being fed” with uranium. [24]
Iran has blamed Israel for the Natanz accident and the Mohsen Fakhrizadeh assassination in November 2020. [18]
Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran has said that in response to the attack, Iran will increase enriching uranium by up to 60% and will replace the old centrifuges with more advanced ones. [25]
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, called the incident a terrorist act and said that the Natanz accident showed the opponents of the country's industrial and political progress have failed in preventing significant development of the nuclear industry. [16] He announced that Iran will build a new hall "in the heart of the mountain" near Natanz. [26]
Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of Iran, in a letter to Antonio Guterres, described the Natanz sabotage as "a grave war crime" due to the high risk of potential release of radioactive material, and said that any power that is aware of the crime, must be held accountable as an accomplice to this war crime. [17] He also condemned two Israeli attacks on Natanz in one year. [27]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that "the struggle against Iran and its proxies and the Iranian armament efforts is a huge mission". [14] Already, he warned about the return of the U.S to JCPOA and said: that the new deal will not be binding on Israel. [28]
After this sabotage at Natanz, that has been attributed to Israel, the European Union described these actions as efforts to endanger talks to return the US to JCPOA and send out a warning. [29]
Aviv Kochavi, the Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces said: "operations in the Middle East are not hidden from the eyes of the enemy". [16]
According to Reuters, diplomats said that due to security concerns following the Israeli attack on the Natanz site in April, Iran has been restricting access by U.N. nuclear inspectors to its main uranium enrichment site in Natanz. [30]
Iran has research sites, two uranium mines, a research reactor, and uranium processing facilities that include three known uranium enrichment plants.
Natanz is a city in the Central District of Natanz County, Isfahan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district. It is 70 kilometres (43 mi) south-east of Kashan.
In the 1970s and 1980s, during the military regime, Brazil had a secret program intended to develop nuclear weapons. The program was dismantled in 1990, five years after the military regime ended. Brazil is considered to possess no weapons of mass destruction but does have some of the key technologies needed to produce nuclear weapons.
Iran is not known to currently possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and has signed treaties repudiating the possession of WMD including the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran has first-hand knowledge of WMD effects—over 100,000 Iranian troops and civilians were victims of chemical weapons during the 1980s Iran–Iraq War.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is an Iranian dissident, media commentator on the Middle East, and US representative of the People's Mujahedin of Iran. He is known for releasing information on Iran's secret nuclear program.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747 was a United Nations Security Council resolution, written with reference to some IAEA reports, that tightened the sanctions imposed on Iran in connection with the Iranian nuclear program. It was adopted unanimously by the United Nations Security Council on 24 March 2007.
This is the timeline of the nuclear program of Iran.
Iran's nuclear program is made up of a number of nuclear facilities, including nuclear reactors and various nuclear fuel cycle facilities.
IR-40 also known as Arak Nuclear Complex is an Iranian 40 megawatt (thermal) heavy water reactor near Arak, adjacent to the 1990s era Arak Heavy Water Production Plant. Civil works for the construction began in October 2004. It was initially planned that the reactor would begin nuclear operations in 2014.
Stuxnet is a malicious computer worm first uncovered in 2010 and thought to have been in development since at least 2005. Stuxnet targets supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and is believed to be responsible for causing substantial damage to the nuclear program of Iran. Although neither country has openly admitted responsibility, multiple independent news organizations recognize Stuxnet to be a cyberweapon built jointly by the United States and Israel in a collaborative effort known as Operation Olympic Games. The program, started during the Bush administration, was rapidly expanded within the first months of Barack Obama's presidency.
Operation Olympic Games was an ostensible and still unacknowledged campaign of sabotage by means of cyber disruption, directed at Iranian nuclear facilities likely by the United States and Israel. As reported, it is one of the first known uses of offensive cyber weapons. Started under the administration of George W. Bush in 2006, Olympic Games was accelerated under President Obama, who heeded Bush's advice to continue cyber attacks on the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz. Bush believed that the strategy was the only way to prevent an Israeli conventional strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The vulnerability of nuclear plants to deliberate attack is of concern in the area of nuclear safety and security. Nuclear power plants, civilian research reactors, certain naval fuel facilities, uranium enrichment plants, fuel fabrication plants, and even potentially uranium mines are vulnerable to attacks which could lead to widespread radioactive contamination. The attack threat is of several general types: commando-like ground-based attacks on equipment which if disabled could lead to a reactor core meltdown or widespread dispersal of radioactivity; external attacks such as an aircraft crash into a reactor complex, or cyber attacks.
On 24 November 2013, the Joint Plan of Action, also known as the Geneva interim agreement, was a pact signed between Iran and the P5+1 countries in Geneva, Switzerland. It consists of a short-term freeze of portions of Iran's nuclear program in exchange for decreased economic sanctions on Iran, as the countries work towards a long-term agreement. It represented the first formal agreement between the United States and Iran in 34 years. Implementation of the agreement began 20 January 2014.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal, is an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program reached in Vienna on 14 July 2015, between Iran and the P5+1 together with the European Union.
The Iran nuclear deal framework was a preliminary framework agreement reached in 2015 between the Islamic Republic of Iran and a group of world powers: the P5+1 and the European Union.
Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP) is an Iranian underground uranium enrichment facility located 20 miles (32 km) northeast of the Iranian city of Qom, near Fordow village, at a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base. The site is under the control of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). It is the second Iranian uranium enrichment facility, the other one being that of Natanz. According to the Institute for Science and International Security, possible coordinates of the facility's location are: 34.88459°N 50.99596°E.
This article discusses the negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran that led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, more commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, was the international agreement reached on Iran's nuclear program in Vienna in 2015. The deal, made after several years of negotiation, set in place strict guidelines to regulate and oversee the Iranian nuclear program including the reduction of centrifuges, enriched uranium stockpiles, and an agreement to allow regular inspections of nuclear sites, among other aspects. The deal has attracted enormous criticism by certain political and media elements in the United States and Iran as the deal is viewed as conciliatory in nature by some factions in both countries. For example, President Donald J. Trump called the Iran deal, "the worst deal ever negotiated" and United States Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell characterized it as "flawed", while hardliners in Iran have indicated a desire to subvert it. Much of the criticism in the United States has been centered on the issue of appeasement and Iran's compliance, while in Iran many of the criticisms revolve around the issue of sovereignty and non-nuclear restrictions.
The 2020 Iran explosions were a series of eleven explosions in Iran, including at an advanced centrifuge assembly facility, alleged missile sites, petrochemical centers, power plants, a nuclear enrichment facility and a medical clinic. First reported on 25 June 2020, The Iranian government has denied reports of explosions in its missile sites while acknowledging damage to its largest nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz.
Erik Jacob van Sabben was a Dutch engineer. He was allegedly recruited in 2008 by the Dutch intelligence services AIVD and MIVD to infect the centrifuge infrastructure at the Natanz nuclear enrichment lab in Iran with the Stuxnet malware in 2009. The industrial espionage operation required years of preparation and cooperation between the CIA and Mossad, and cost $1 billion in a collaborative effort known as Operation Olympic Games. Stuxnet reportedly ruined almost one-fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges.
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