Eurasia Press & News
Iran has confirmed that it relocated a facility housing centrifuges used for uranium enrichment to its underground Natanz nuclear site. The spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Behrouz Kamalvandi, said in an interview with Iran’s al-Alam TV on late on Saturday that the “centrifuge machines were moved to a safer location and are now in operation.”
The centrifuges had been housed in Iran’s centrifuge facility in Karaj, which was hit with a sabotage attack in June that Iran blames on Israel. Iran has plans to develop and manufacture centrifuge machines and to boost their security, Kamalvandi said in the interview. The IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, noted in a confidential report to member states on Thursday that was seen by the Reuters news agency, that it had installed surveillance cameras at the site and that the centrifuge machines were operational. Kamalvandi also said in the Saturday interview that the IAEA will have no access to data recorded by its surveillance cameras until Iran and the world powers reach an agreement on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The nuclear talks in Vienna have currently stalled in their last stages over a few remaining issues on which both Iran and the United States blame the other side for intransigence.
