Damaged nuclear site in Iran confirmed to be a centrifuge facility

Iran’s IRNA news agency reported that Iran has confirmed that a damaged building at the underground Natanz nuclear site was a new centrifuge assembly centre.

Iranian officials had previously sought to downplay the fire, which erupted early on Thursday, calling it only an “incident” that affected an “industrial shed.” Iranian state television broadcasted a released photo and video of the site which showed a two-storey brick building with scorch marks and its roof apparently destroyed.

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A spokesman for Iran’s nuclear agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said Sunday that work had begun on the centre in 2013 and it was inaugurated in 2018. He said that, “More advanced centrifuge machines were intended to be built there. The damage would possibly cause a delay in development and production of advanced centrifuge machines in the medium term.”

He said the fire had damaged “precision and measuring instruments,” and that the centre had not been operating at full capacity due to restrictions imposed by Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Iran began experimenting with advanced centrifuge models in the wake of the US unilaterally withdrawing from the deal two years ago.

The Natanz fire also came less than a week after an explosion in an area east of7 Tehran that analysts believe hides an underground tunnel system and missile production sites.

Destroying a centrifuge assembly facility could greatly impact Iran’s ability to more-quickly enrich greater amounts of uranium, which would be a goal for either Israel or the US.