An air defense test near an Iranian nuclear facility resulted in an explosion in the sky that startled local residents.
According to the Irna news agency, residents of Badrud, a town 20 kilometers away from Natan's nuclear facility, reported a loud bang and a flash in the sky on Saturday evening.
A little later, however, the Iranian military gave the all-clear and stated that there had been a test of their own missile system.
"An hour ago our missile system was tested in the region to check our combat readiness," said the military commander responsible for the Natans region on state television. “There is no need to worry.” Uranium is being enriched in Natans. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the capacity of the plant was recently increased.
Iran wants to enrich uranium up to 60 percent. The international nuclear agreement of 2015 only allows Tehran a uranium enrichment of 3.67 percent for the civil use of atomic energy. The 2015 agreement is intended to prevent Tehran from building nuclear weapons. Among other things, the country undertook to limit its uranium enrichment capacities and to allow regular inspections of its nuclear facilities. In return, international sanctions were lifted.
In 2018, under President Donald Trump, the United States left the agreement and again imposed massive sanctions on Iran.
Thereafter, Tehran also gradually withdrew from the agreement.
Since then, Iran has continued to expand its uranium enrichment capacities and at the same time restricted the international atomic authority's control options.
The current US President Joe Biden has basically signaled his readiness for a new version of the agreement with Iran.
Negotiations are currently underway in Vienna to revive the agreement, but the USA and the European negotiators do not believe that these are making good progress.