The Iranian nuclear plant at Bushehr was shut down due to a ‘technical failure’

Iran’s only nuclear power plant in the port city of Bushehr closed last weekend. The reactor, located 750 kilometers south of the capital Tehran, was shut down automatically on Saturday night due to an emergency shutdown, Iranian officials said. According to Nuclear system Iran says this is a technical failure.

The plant will be closed for about three to four days, an official of the state-owned electricity company Dhawanir said on a program on Iranian television yesterday. He did not disclose the possible reason. He said Iranians should take power restrictions into account. He also called for using as little electricity as possible.

The question is whether the failure was actually a technical error. Since last year, there have been more and more mysterious incidents in Iran. Last year, for example, there were several explosions at power plants and nuclear power plants. These incidents give the impression of possible cyber sabotage, which took place in Iran in the past. “We will not find out exactly what happened there,” says reporter Daisy More. “A lot of mysterious things are going on around the nuclear program in Iran, so this may be one of them.”

In the region, Iran’s nuclear program is of particular concern to Israel. The Israeli secret service Mossad is widely believed to be behind a series of (cyber) attacks on Iranian targets. Mossad leader Yoshi Cohen, who recently resigned, recently … In an interview Tens of thousands of Iranian documents with an Israeli TV channel about a major operation smuggled out of the country. He also suggested that Israel be behind the attack on an underground nuclear complex in Natanz earlier this year. “We make it very clear: we will not allow you to possess nuclear weapons,” Cohen said.

The shortage of areas, due to sanctions, may have played a role in the problems in Busher.

Controversial nuclear deal

This is the first time Iran has reported an incident at the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which has been operating since 2011 and generating 1,000 megawatts of electricity. The plant was built with the help of Russia, which took over construction in 1995 after several years of delays in oil transfers.

Iran’s nuclear program has been the subject of much controversy for years. The country says it needs a nuclear power plant to generate electricity, but Western governments fear the regime is secretly building nuclear weapons. Iran has always denied it.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, found in May this year that the country had not complied with the terms of the nuclear deal it had agreed to for several months. Despite lack of access to information, the IAEA estimates that Iran currently has 16 times more enriched uranium than allowed under the agreement. Uranium is essential for energy production, but also for the production of nuclear weapons.

New negotiations

The nuclear deal with Iran has stumbled since US President Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018. Relations between Iran and the United States deteriorated further in 2020, when the US military assassinated Iranian General Qasim Solomon.

US President Joe Biden has said he wants to renew the deal during his election campaign. New round of talks has begun since April, but they are difficult. It seems that Iran is ready to cooperate only if the previously imposed sanctions are lifted. But for Python it was not so easy because there was little support for it in the United States. “Confidence is one of the most important issues on both sides, and they both want the other to take the first step,” Moore says.

The new Iranian president

The big question is whether negotiations to return to the 2015 nuclear deal will continue, under President Raisi, the most conservative chief justice elected last weekend during the presidential election in Iran. Did not provide a clear conclusion. Rice continues to lash out at the West, but recently said he wants to return to the deal.

“They have all returned home now, but Raisi has indicated he is ready for talks,” More said. “The big question here is who will Raisi choose as the chief negotiator and foreign minister on his team.”