Iran urges UN to condemn Karaj nuclear site 'sabotage'

Iran on Tuesday urged the UN atomic agency to clearly condemn a "sabotage" attack on a nuclear facility west of Tehran that it has accused arch-foe Israel of carrying out.

Tehran said on June 23 that it had thwarted the attack on the building belonging to its own nuclear agency near Karaj, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the capital.

At the time, it did not identify the nature of the attack, with state television saying only that "saboteurs failed to carry out their plan".

On Sunday, Iran's atomic agency chief Mohammad Eslami said the UN watchdog and Western powers had failed to condemn the "terrorist act" that "severely damaged" the site.

"The latest act of sabotage by the occupation regime in Jerusalem against our country's nuclear programme was the terrorist attack on the TESA complex in Karaj," the official IRNA news agency said on Tuesday.

It repeated Eslami's accusation that the site was targeted by Israel, adding that the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency "must therefore clarify its position on this incident".

The IAEA said on September 26 that it had been denied "indispensable" access to the TESA Karaj centrifuge component manufacturing workshop contrary to an agreement with Iran.

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, rejected the charge, saying it "isn't accurate and goes beyond the agreed terms."

"The IAEA representatives in both Teheran and Vienna have been informed that this centre has been severely damaged, especially the cameras that were installed there," Eslami said on Sunday.

"It is regrettable that neither the IAEA nor other countries that are blaming us do not condemn this terrorist act," he added.

Iran has repeatedly accused Israel of sabotaging its nuclear sites and killing a number of its scientists.