Iran admits fire at Natanz nuclear facility caused significant damage
Natanz Nuclear Facility
A fire that broke out at Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment site on Thursday caused significant damage, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was quoted as saying on Sunday by the official IRNA news agency.
Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said the fire could slow down Tehran's development and production of advanced centrifuges in the medium term, and that Iran would replace the damaged building with a bigger one that had more advanced equipment, according to Reuters.
The spokesman said the cause of the blaze had been determined, but gave no details.
Some Iranian officials have blamed possible cyber-sabotage, according to BBC.
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Centrifuges are needed to produce enriched uranium, which can be used to make reactor fuel but also nuclear weapons, the BBC report added.
Kamalvandi said security officials were not talking about what caused the Natanz fire "because of security reasons".
Also read:Iran nuclear deal is hanging by a thread
The incident, he was quoted as saying, had "caused significant damage, but there were no casualties".
Other fires and explosions have also occurred in the past week in Iran.
Natanz is the centrepiece of Iran's enrichment programme, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes. Western intelligence agencies and the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog (IAEA) believe it had a coordinated, clandestine nuclear arms programme that it halted in 2003. Tehran denies ever seeking nuclear weapons.
The Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP), Iran's main uranium enrichment site which is mostly underground, is one of several Iranian facilities monitored by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
The IAEA said on Friday that the location of the fire did not contain nuclear materials and that none of its inspectors was present at the time.
(With inputs from Reuters)