Iran blames Israel for nuclear facility incident, vows revenge

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif vowed revenge against Israel for an attack on the Islamic Republic's main nuclear facilities at Natanz but said it will not stop high-level talks to restore the country’s nuclear deal with world powers, Al Jazeera reports.

In a private meeting with lawmakers on Monday, April 12, Zarif pointed out that top Israeli officials explicitly said they would try to prevent multilateral efforts to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which would lead to lifting United States sanctions on Iran.

“Now they think they will achieve their goal. But the Zionists will get their answer in more nuclear advancements,” the diplomat was quoted as saying by state-run IRNA.

He vowed “revenge” against Israel and said Iran would not fall into its trap by refusing to engage in talks that could see unilateral U.S. sanctions lifted. He also promised Natanz will be built stronger than before, using more advanced centrifuges.

The enrichment and centrifuge assembly lines in Isfahan’s Natanz, the country’s main facilities, were targeted by a large-scale blackout on Sunday that Iran called an act of “nuclear terrorism”.

Israel has not officially accepted responsibility for the attack but has imposed no censorship restrictions on its wide coverage by local media, some of which has explicitly said Israel’s spy agency Mossad was responsible.