IRAN (REUTERS, BLOOMBERG, AFP) – Iran’s state television on Saturday (April 17) identified a man it said was behind a recent explosion at its main Natanz nuclear plant.

“Reza Karimi, the perpetrator of this sabotage…, has been identified,” said by Iran’s intelligence ministry, state TV said.

It said the suspect had fled Iran before last Sunday’s blast that the Islamic Republic has blamed on arch-foe Israel. 

The television showed what it said was a photograph of the suspected perpetrator on a red card that had “Interpol Wanted” written on it.

The card listed his age as 43.

“Necessary steps are underway for his arrest and return to the country through legal channels,” the report added.

State TV also aired footage of rows of what it said were centrifuges which had replaced the ones damaged in the blast at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant. 

It added that “a large number” of centrifuges whose enrichment activity was disrupted by the explosion had been returned to normal service, the report said.

Mr Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, said last week that the disruption at the Natanz facility, home to thousands of gas centrifuges, showed there was an attempt to thwart both Iran’s atomic progress and the ongoing diplomacy in Vienna, state TV reported.

Days after the incident, Teheran wrote to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency to announce “that Iran will start 60 per cent enrichment,” the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Such a move would bring Iran closer to the 90 per cent purity threshold for military use.

Under the nuclear deal, Iran had committed to keep enrichment to 3.67 per cent.

The accord between Iran and the UN Security Council’s permanent members plus Germany promised Iran relief from punishing sanctions in return for agreeing to limits on its nuclear programme.

Iran has always denied it is seeking a nuclear bomb, while Israel has vowed it will stop the Islamic republic from ever building an atom bomb, which it considers an existential threat to the Jewish state.

The mysterious blast at Natanz has sharply heightened tensions between the two powers already engaged in a shadow war on lands and seas across the Middle East, with Iran on Monday vowing to take “revenge”.

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