TEHRAN-- The head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the parliament spoke about Sunday’s sabotage act in Natanz, saying Iran will install more advanced centrifuges at the nuclear facility.

Mojtaba Zolnour said, “This incident, which occurred through a cyber-disruption in the electrical facilities of the Shahid Ahmadi Roshan Enrichment Complex, can be examined from several perspectives. First, the accident caused damage to some of the first-generation IR1 centrifuges. The capacity of these centrifuges are at their lowest, enriching 800gs to a maximum of 1.2kgs of uranium per year. We can produce a maximum of one ton of enriched uranium in one year if we have a thousand IR1 centrifuges.”

He added, “This disruption in the electrical facilities of the Shahid Ahmadi-Roshan Complex has caused a number of these centrifuges to decommission, and since the enrichment machines must be fully operational and in orbit, stopping them has caused this damage."

He then moved to discuss what he believed was the second aspect of sabotage act at the facility.

“The second point is that the enemy is trying to focus on the strategy of emptying our hands in the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the P4 + 1 (in Vienna) and, in its own imaginations, undermining our bargaining power by damaging the nuclear infrastructure.”

Then, he proceeded to discuss the third aspect of the cyber-attack on Natanz.

“The third point about this incident is the height of hostility and the mendacity of the other side, because we know that the Zionist regime, as the chained dog of the imperialism and international Zionism, is involved in this incident and we do not think that the United States’ hands are clean as well.”

emphasizing that Iran must seriously and decisively continue the path of developing its peaceful nuclear industry, he said, “We must try launch the advanced generation of centrifuges, including but not limited to IR6 centrifuges which have the capacity of enriching 6 to 7 tons of uranium per year and in the future test the newer generation of centrifuges, which are the same IR9 machines, and replace the destroyed centrifuges.”

Stressing that the sabotage act did not cause serious damage to the country's nuclear industry, he noted that the policy of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has long been to gradually phase out IR1 machines.

The crashing possibility of these machines is high and their enrichment capacity is low, he said. 

“If we have a thousand IR1 centrifuges in a thousand square meter hall, a maximum of one ton of enriched uranium can be obtained from them annually, but if a thousand IR6 devices are working in the same hall, at least 6 tons of enriched uranium is extracted annually.”

The head of the parliamentary committee further stated “we will respond in the right place and we will act prudently to respond to the enemy; certainly, the officials will monitor the situation and at the right time, a regrettable blow will be dealt to the enemy, but the choice of time, place and type of action is the responsibility of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Emphasizing that Iran’s response to the enemy will be in line with national interests and in a timely manner, he said, “One of the provocative actions of the enemy is to force us to act hastily and recklessly, but they should know that we will not be deceived by their behavior, and our decisive action will be measured.”

SA/PA