Electrical problem strikes Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility

Iran’s Natanz nuclear site suffered a problem involving its electrical distribution grid on Sunday, just hours after starting up new advanced centrifuges which more quickly enrich uranium, state TV reported.

It is the latest incident to strike one of Tehran’s most-secured sites amid negotiations over the troubled atomic accord with world powers.

State TV quoted Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s civilian nuclear programmne, announcing the incident.

He said there were no injuries or pollution caused by the incident.

The word state television used in its report attributed to Mr Kamalvandi in Farsi can be used for both “accident” and “incident”.

It did not immediately clarify the report, which ran at the bottom of its screen on its live broadcast.

The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, the civilian arm of its nuclear programme, did not immediately issue a formal statement about the incident on its website.

Natanz suffered a mysterious explosion in July that authorities later described as sabotage.

Israel, Iran’s regional arch enemy, has been suspected of carrying out an attack there, as well as launching other assaults, as world powers now negotiate with Tehran in Vienna over its nuclear deal.

On Saturday, Iran announced that it had launched a chain of 164 IR-6 centrifuges at the plant, injecting them with the uranium gas and beginning their rapid spinning.

Officials also began testing the IR-9 centrifuge, which they say will enrich uranium 50 times faster than Iran’s first-generation centrifuges, the IR-1. The nuclear deal limited Iran to using only IR-1s for enrichment.

Since then-President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Tehran has abandoned all the limits of its uranium stockpile.

It now enriches up to 20% purity, a technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Iran maintains that its atomic programme is for peaceful purposes, but fears about Tehran having the ability to make a bomb saw world powers reach the deal with the Islamic Republic in 2015.

The deal lifted economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for it limiting its programme and allowing inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to keep a close watch on its work.

PA Media