Dubai, United Arab Emirates—— A senior Iranian official has admitted for the first time that Israel provided Iran with centrifuge platforms packed with explosives for use in its nuclear enrichment program, underscoring the complexity of sabotage plans against the Islamic Republic.

The comments by Mohammad Javad Zarif, a former foreign minister and reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian's vice president for strategic affairs, appeared aimed at explaining to the country's disgruntled public the harsh Western sanctions imposed on the Iranian government over the program. challenges faced below. The comments also acknowledged details previously reported by Israel regarding the 2021 attack on Iran's underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility.

The revelations this week showed the dangers Iran still faces after Israel attacked it twice during its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, threatening Iran as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to re-enter the country. , directly targeting its nuclear facilities. The White House next week.

Zarif made the remarks during an interview with a project affiliated with the Institute for Compilation and Publication of the Works of Imam Khomeini, a publicly funded organization in Iran. With Iranian state television controlled by hardliners, politicians from Iran's reformist camp seek to change Iran's Shia theocracy from within, often seeking different media channels to reach the public.

Zarif, who helped Iran secure a nuclear deal with world powers in 2015, discussed a damaging attack by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency in September that targeted pagers and radio equipment used by the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah. Two waves of attacks killed 42 people and injured thousands more, setting the stage for Israel's invasion of Lebanon in October.

Zarif said: "This is part of the damage of sanctions, you are forced to receive (buy) through multiple dealers instead of buying directly from the factory. If the Zionist regime can penetrate one of the dealers, then it Can do this with anything and install anything. "

"For example, our friends at the Atomic Energy Organization (of Iran) purchased a centrifuge platform in which (the Israelis) installed explosive materials," he added.

Zarif did not elaborate, and the interviewer did not press him on the issue.

However, this marks the first time Mossad has explicitly acknowledged the extent of its penetration into Iran's plans.

In July 2020, a mysterious explosion tore apart components of an advanced centrifuge at Natanz, which Iran blamed on Israel. In April 2021, another explosion destroyed one of the underground enrichment halls.

Months later, outgoing Israeli Mossad chief Yossi Cohen gave an interview to Israeli television in which he all but admitted that his spies had carried out both attacks. The program said a saboteur "ensure that Iran was provided with the marble foundations on which the centrifuges were placed", which included "a large amount of explosives".

The attacks occurred under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu has led Israel through the Middle East war since a Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostage. Since then, Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

Israel and Hamas are closest to a ceasefire, as mediators say, amid growing concerns over Iran's nuclear program. Since Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from an international deal in 2018 that greatly restricted Iran's plans, Tehran has breached all of the deal's limits.

Iran is now enriching uranium to closer to weapons-grade levels than ever before, and its stockpile of enriched uranium continues to grow. Its officials increasingly threatened to seek the atomic bomb.

Iranian officials insist their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and they want to negotiate with the West over it.

"The problem we have is not dialogue," Pezeshkian told NBC News in an interview that aired Tuesday night. “What we have to commit to is a commitment that comes through talk and dialogue.”

He added: "We kept all the promises we had to make. But unfortunately the other party did not live up to their promises and obligations."

Israel, President Joe Biden and Trump have repeatedly warned that they will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. This has raised concerns about a pre-emptive strike by Israel against Iran's nuclear facilities, something it has done in both Iraq and Syria.

Asked about the possibility of such an attack, Pezeshkian said: "We are not afraid of war, but we do not seek war either."

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Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.