Sunday, 05 July_The spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says a new and more advanced shed will be built at Natanz nuclear facility to replace the one damaged in a recent incident.
In an interview with IRNA on Sunday, Behrouz Kamalvandi said, “Necessary arrangements have been made to rebuild the damaged shed at Shahid Ahmadi Roshan (Natanz) nuclear facility and a bigger shed with more advanced equipment is to replace it.”
More centrifuge machines, he added, were supposed to be produced at the damaged shed, which was inaugurated following Washington’s withdrawal from Iran nuclear agreement – officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – in May 2018 and exactly two days after Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei ordered the AEOI to make preparations for the enrichment of uranium up to a level of 190,000 SWU without delay.
Of course, Kamalvandi said, the facility did not operate at full capacity due to the JCPOA limitations, but this shed was to undergo further development and this project was ongoing until the day when the incident happened.
In his order to the AEOI in June 2018, the Leader said, “It seems from what they say that some European governments expect the Iranian nation to both put up with sanctions and give up its nuclear activities and continue to observe limitations [on its nuclear program]. I tell those governments that this bad dream will never come true.”
The landmark nuclear deal was reached between Iran and the P5+1 group – the US, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany – in 2015. However, in May 2018, US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew his country and later re-imposed the sanctions that had been lifted against Tehran and began unleashing the “toughest ever” fresh sanctions.