Iran boosts enrichment after nuke plant blast

2021-04-14 16:01:01 GMT2021-04-15 00:01:01(Beijing Time) Sina English

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday its decision to boost uranium enrichment to 60 percent was a response to Israel’s “nuclear terrorism” against its Natanz facility.

Tehran starting advanced centrifuges and producing more highly refined uranium “is a response to your malice,” Rouhani said in a message aimed at the Jewish state.

“What you did was nuclear terrorism,” he said in televised remarks, referring to a blast on Sunday that knocked out electricity at the country’s main nuclear facility. “What we do is legal.”

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement but public radio reports in the country said it was a sabotage operation by the Mossad spy agency. Rouhani said Iran’s security bodies were yet to provide a final report but the incident appeared to be a “Zionists’ crime.”

Iran’s envoy to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, Kazem Gharibabadi, wrote on Twitter that steps to allow enrichment to higher purity had started and that “we expect to accumulate the product next week.”

Iran’s announcement has cast a shadow over talks aimed at salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that then US president Donald Trump abandoned three years ago.

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