* Iran says power lines targeted, but no damage to nuclear
sites
* Contacts under way to try to restart nuclear talks with
Iran
* Head of Iranian agency says IAEA may harbour terrorists
* Israel has stepped up threats to attack Iran
VIENNA, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Power lines to Iran's most
controversial nuclear enrichment plant were blown up a month
ago, according to its atomic energy chief, who alleged on Monday
that the U.N. nuclear watchdog may have been infiltrated by
"terrorists and saboteurs".
The accusation coincides with strident Israeli warnings
about the need to stem Iran's nuclear programme with a threat of
force, as well as new diplomatic efforts to secure better
inspections and an abandonment of work that could be used to
develop atomic weapons.
The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had no
immediate response but Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani's comments seemed
certain to overshadow those efforts.
He told the IAEA's annual assembly that power lines from the
city of Qom to the underground Fordow plant had been blown up on
Aug. 17, and "the same act" had been carried out earlier on
power lines to Iran's main enrichment plant, near the town of
Natanz.
The plants use centrifuges to "enrich" uranium to a higher
concentration of the fissile material that can be used in
nuclear power plants or nuclear weapons.
Fordow worries the West most as it produces uranium of 20
percent fissile purity, more than needed for power plants and
only a short technical step from the 90 percent needed for a
warhead.
"It should be recalled that power cut-off is one of the ways
to break down centrifuge machines," Abbasi-Davani said.
On Aug. 18, he said, an IAEA inspector had asked for an
unannounced visit to Fordow, built 80 metres below ground to
better protect it against enemy strikes.
"Does this visit have any connection to that detonation?
Who, other than the IAEA inspector, can have access to the
complex in such a short time to record and report failures?" he
asked.
"Terrorists and saboteurs might have intruded the agency and
might be making decisions covertly," he said, according to an
official Iranian translation of his speech in Farsi.
"NO DAMAGE"
He later told reporters that back-up power and other
defences had prevented any damage to the Fordow plant.
Abbasi-Davani did not say who he believed was behind the
attacks, though Iran has often accused Israel and Tehran's
Western foes of trying to sabotage its nuclear programme.
At least four scientists associated with the programme have
been assassinated since 2010, most recently in January, and the
Stuxnet computer virus was used to cause malfunctions in Iran's
nuclear enrichment equipment.
But Abbasi-Davani did for the first time explicitly and
publicly suggest that the IAEA might be complicit in sabotage.
The IAEA has voiced growing concern about what Western
diplomats describe as persistent Iranian stonewalling of its
attempts to conduct detailed inspections of Iran's research.
An IAEA report issued late last month did indicate that
inspectors had visited Fordow on Aug. 18, but it did not refer
to any damage.
Instead it said Iran had doubled the number of centrifuges
at Fordow, despite U.N. sanctions, Western attempts to limit
Iran's oil exports, and the threat of an Israeli attack.
A Western diplomat said the Iranian allegation that the
agency may have been infiltrated by terrorists was "insulting to
the IAEA and its professional staff".
"Their (Iran's) assertions are becoming more desperate and
ludicrous to distract attention away from their lack of
cooperation and duplicity in dealing with the agency," he said.
DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is due to meet
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator on Tuesday on behalf of six
major powers, and IAEA head Yukiya Amano said on Monday that his
agency would hold more talks with Iran about inspections aimed
at allaying Western concerns.
Abbasi-Davani, himself wounded in an attack in Tehran two
years ago, made clear his view that sabotage would not slow
Iran's nuclear programme, which it says is purely peaceful.
Israel, believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed
state, sees Iran's atomic work as a threat to its existence and
has been suggesting it could launch an attack on Iran to prevent
it reaching nuclear weapons capability.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been
pressing Washington to threaten military action against Iran's
nuclear programme, said on Sunday that Iran would be on the
brink of being able to build a nuclear bomb in six or seven
months.
The United States and its allies have launched a major naval
exercise in the Gulf that they say shows a global will to keep
oil shipping lanes open as Israel and Iran trade threats of war.
Abbasi-Davani said Iranian experts had devised "certain ways
through which nuclear facilities remain intact under missile
attacks and air raids."