AEOI chief blames western, eastern states for efforts to sabotage Iran's nuclear sites

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi said not only the western, but also some developing states have been trying to sabotage Iran's nuclear installations through selling malfunctioning parts to the country.
"Unfortunately, different European and western countries and famous world industries with special positions (in this industry) have collaborated with the Zionist regime and the US efforts to sabotage Iran's nuclear industry, and if one day we reveal the names of these industries and companies to the world, all people will understand the importance of this issue," Salehi told reporters on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of a specialized exhibition on Iran's campaign against industrial sabotage inaugurated in Tehran on Monday.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran inevitably purchases certain parts from certain developing countries in the east, but unfortunately they are also after sabotaging Iran's nuclear industry," he said.
"We might not get surprised by the West's sabotage operations against Iran given its opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran, but we are certainly stunned when such moves are made by the eastern countries and we should ask why the eastern states are fooled by the West's moves," he added.
Salehi expressed the hope that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would approve a new convention proposed by Iran to forbid sabotage operations against the nuclear industry of the world states.
In relevant remarks today, Salehi's deputy said Germany, France and Britain, headed by the US, have been involved in sabotage operations against Iran's nuclear facilities.
"It is evident to us that certain countries, including Germany, France and Britain headed by the US, are involved in this trend (nuclear sabotage) and they seek to impair our peaceful nuclear activities," AEOI Deputy Chief for Nuclear Security Affairs Asqar Zare'an said.
The nuclear official said "a laboratory in New Mexico in the US is working on conducting sabotage operations in Iran's nuclear industries", and added that "this trend is being developed through cooperation among foreigners (foreign states)".
He warned that the sabotage operations conducted by the westerners against Iran are not limited to the nuclear activities but they are also conducted against the country's "defense, telecommunication and other sensitive and vital infrastructures".
In October 2013, Salehi called on the country's security forces to be watchful of possible terrorist attacks on the country's nuclear centers, and said several such acts of sabotage have been defused and a number of spies have been arrested in the last few days.
"I urge the security forces to watch the country's borders vigilantly since there is a possibility of acts of sabotage in the country," Salehi said in Tehran.
He said that the Iranian security forces have foiled several plots against the country's nuclear installations in recent days, and said, "The enemy always seeks to strike a blow at the country's nuclear installations and therefore, the AEOI's guard units bear a highly heavy responsibility."
Salehi also announced the identification and arrest of four spies in the AEOI in recent days, and said they are being interrogated now and the details of the case will be announced later.
Iran has repeatedly complained of the enemies' hostile efforts against its civilian nuclear program. Tehran says the enemies' campaign includes the abduction of scientists, the sale of faulty equipment and the planting of destructive computer worms, including Stuxnet, which sought to disrupt Iran's uranium enrichment activity in 2010.
In 2012, former Head of AEOI Fereidoun Abbasi announced that separate attacks on Iran's centrifuges - through tiny explosives meant to disable key parts of the machines - were discovered before the blasts could go off on timers.
Over the past few years Iran has been the target of numerous cyber attacks carried out to disrupt the country's industrial systems, but Iranian experts have managed to find and defuse such highly dangerous plots.
Abbasi also told the UN nuclear agency in Vienna that "terrorists and saboteurs" might have infiltrated the International Atomic Energy Agency, after the watchdog's inspectors arrived at the Fordo underground enrichment facility shortly after power lines were blown up through sabotage on August 17, 2012.
Iran has several times complained that the IAEA is sending spies in the guise of inspectors to collect information about its nuclear activities, pointing to leaks of information by inspectors to US and other officials.
In May 2012, Iran announced that its cyber experts detected and contained a complicated Israeli spy virus known as "Flame".
The head of Information Technology Organization of Iran, Ali Hakim Javadi, said earlier that the country's experts had managed to produce anti-virus software that could spot and remove the detected computer virus "Flame".
Javadi said that the indigenous anti-virus software had been capable of detecting the virus and cleaning up the infected computers.
He said that the malware was different from other viruses and was more destructive than Stuxnet.
On April 24, 2012, an Iranian oil official said the country's experts had contained cyber attacks against the country's Oil Ministry.
Hamdollah Mohammadnejad, deputy minister in engineering affairs, said "Recently, a few number of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) servers were attacked by a malware, but the cyber security experts of oil industry contained it immediately."
In October 2010, former Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi announced that Iran had detected and thwarted a virus aimed at infecting the country's nuclear plant system.
Iran said the computer worm, Stuxnet, had infected some IP addresses in Iran, including the personal computers of the staff at the country's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr. Tehran said Israel and the US were behind the infection of its industrial sites.