when i joined live here on the program by political analyst aside mohammed but i do from the university of tehran joining us here on r.t. great to see you today it's tough to get a really clear picture of exactly what happened we understand the report of a power outage or a blackout is there any report that you can tell us about the damage that might have occurred to the facility. well they're saying it wasn't a cyber attack and i think that's probably accurate because it's not connected to the internet one of the halls was damage in the town's facilities has 4 or 5 halls where enrichment takes place and it wasn't in the halls where they had their advanced centrifuges the i r 98 and i r 6 so the old centrifuges were damaged in one of the halls and they're saying that in 7 to 9 weeks they will be producing as normal and they will be replacing the old centrifuges with the more advanced and the state of the art centrifuges from iran mr burley of the leave is that this was a joint operation. just i just want to pick you up on that because the israeli media were quick to boast the outage was the work

delve deeper into this we are joined by professor saeed mohammad marandi of the university of tehran good to see you today thanks for joining us here on r t as you heard just there on is ultimately blaming you blaming the u.s. for the drastic situation with the covert numbers in the country essentially saying that u.s. sanctions against iran are resulting in the loss of lives of everyday iranians does that does that sound accurate to you professor. well it's worse than that what the united states has done since day one of covert 19 was that it blocked iran from using the international financial sector even worse even the more effectively than it did before covert 19 in other words the united states introduced new sanctions to block iran's access to the international financial sector after a covert 1000 and that basically blocked iran from importing test kits. importing. all sorts of hospital supplies in order to combat covert 19 ventilators masks at that time at the beginning if you recall there was a shortage of masks so you couldn't even purchase them now underbite in the united st

damage and was expected to happen next with a political analyst having more on the from the university of tehran. one of the halls was damaged. so that he's has 4 or 5 halls where enrichment takes place and it wasn't in the halls where they had their advanced centrifuges the old centrifuges were damaged in $7.00 to $9.00 weeks they will be producing as normal and they will be replacing the old centrifuges with the more advanced. state of the art centrifuges the israeli media were quick to boast the outage was the work of mossad while on sunday the israeli prime minister had this to say. the fight against iran and its proxies the fight against iran's nuclear program the fight against iran's nuclear is ation is a huge task is it possible that this could be interpreted as some kind of admission that means that israeli regime is acknowledging that they've carried out an attack on a sovereign country and. would normally be condemned by the international community it would go to the u.n. security council and the regime would face sanctions obviously the europeans and americans will allow the israelis

. >> joining us from iran is the chair for american studies at the university of tehran. tel aviv, the iranian politics lecturer at the interdisciplinary center, and in washington, d.c., a former u.s. diplomat and the co-author of "going to tehran." thank you for your time with us. hillary, american and israeli intelligence officials, the u.s. and israeli media, are pointing to an israeli role when it comes to this attack in iran. if so, what do you think the purpose is behind it? is it to setback the nuclear program or setback diplomacy as talks are set to resume this week? >> i think it is to setback diplomacy. there is no evidence anything israel has done over the years has setback iran's nuclear program. what the contrary. it has acted as a catalyst to push iran further forward in its nuclear program. it is about scuttling diplomacy, showing not only iran, but maybe more so the biden administration, that it will not allow, as is really officials have said repeatedly, allow this kind of jcpoa to be reconstituted in a way that will be accepted. israeli officials have sa

much very well that's now bring in fall and evaluate he's a professor of wild studies at the university of tehran and he joins us now from the iranian capital professor as we've been hearing that plenty of speculation about just how this attack was carried out i'm curious what's your sense of what's happened here. i think it is good as you report that if you have that it's so i think it is if the sources point out to the fact that what's behind this attack we have had israelis. pointing out this idea that you know the. nuclear program in order to stop iran's nuclear program the united states or utopians about this don't need to give any sanctions or at least you know yes. they can pity the scientists it can damage your hands and you could send it to us so that started you meant that israel does not have gauging this type of practice as well when it comes to the actual way that this attack was carried out i see some experts including iranian ones have suggested this was not a cyber attack perhaps but what it actually required physical infiltration to put off an explosion of this nature i mean give

with has a son who is an assistant professor of middle east and north african studies at the university of tehran is joining us via skype from the iranian capital thank you very much for being with us a lot to talk about let's start with this incident at the in the tons facility that iran reported today certainly very worrying every time there's an incident at a nuclear facility and now in the last hour the iranians describing this as an attack. if they're saying this is an attack 1st of all how much damage do you think could have been sustained here well it's not clear what what happened exactly at the facility the obvious the there are conflicting reports but his latest remarks suggest that there were there has been an attack we don't know what kind of attack is it a cyber or an act of. physical so we don't know that we are yet to hear about that but obviously the clues in is that the there is an active. and obviously the israelis are to blame such circumstances because previous incidents have pointed to israel as well as a track record to the world is that there is no proof right now is israel

of going to tehran. running us from tehran, a professor of political science at tehran university and in vienna, the former the verification and security policy coordination office at the international atomic agency. let me start with you. what is it that has fundamentally changed that allowed these talks to happen? there has been months of posturing about the u.s. and iran. did this, in any way as a surprise? >> i would not say it was a surprise. it is a new development. the new development that led up to this development was the united states dropped its insistence that i ran meet directly with u.s. officials without u.s. officials or before u.s. officials would give any sanctions relief to iran. that was the trump approach. meet with the united states without united states easing sanctions. haydn started off in office with this approach. the difference in the changes that this did not work. the u.s. envoy was able to convince others in washington because there is a divide in washington, he was able to convince people here there could be indirect talks with iran, proximity talks, what is happening now in

diplomat and co-author of going to iran joining us from tehran ahmed was having a professor of political science at the iran university and in vienna tara crow former head of the verification and security policy coordination office at the international atomic energy agency welcome to the program hillary let me start with you today what is it that has fundamentally changed that allowed these talks to happen right now i mean there's been months of posturing by both the u.s. and iran did this come in any way as a surprise. i don't say it was a surprise but it is a new development and i think that the new development that essentially led up to this new development was that the united states dropped its insistence which was really a leftover from the trunk administration its insistence that iran meet directly with u.s. officials without u.s. officials or before u.s. officials would give any sanctions relief to iran and that was essentially the trump approach meet with them meet with the united states without the united states easing sanctions in any way biden started off in office essentially with this trump approach now t

from a new charge of spreading propaganda against tehran she and her family have always denied the allegations against her paul brennan is in london with the reaction there. universal condemnation of this move from senior politicians i mean the reason why i'm here outside the iranian embassy is because it's here in 2009 that now isn't in iraq i have attended government rally and anti government protest and join the protests gave an interview to the b.b.c. persian service and it's for that 12 years later that the iranian authorities have now prosecuted and convicted her for what they say is propaganda against the iranian islamic republic the reaction let's start with the foreign secretary dominic robb who said it was totally inhumane and wholly unjustified decision to come to this this conviction and we continue to call on iran to release nelson immediately and the prime minister boris johnson then subsequently added his voice to the chorus of outrage i don't think it's right at all that nice clean should be sentenced to any more time in in jail i think that it was wrong if it's wrong that she's there in the 1st place and will be working very hard to secure release

of united against nuclear iran a former press attachei at the us embassy in tehran executive director public affairs at borough of manhattan community college and former director of external affairs at columbia university's teachers college and also vary was one of the hostages held by the iranians during the iranian hostage crisis, and and i wanted to say from myself personally and for everyone involved in this that is a personal privilege of huge proportions to have these wonderful people these distinguished people here with us today. so the way we're going to do this is i'm going to turn first to gary and then to barry will speak in john and each will take a segment and i think it's going to be a fascinating adventure and thank you very much for joining us. i'll turn it over now to gary sick, gary. thank you very much mark. it's a real pleasure to be with you again. i have talked to your group before i'm going to basically i was not a hostage in tehran. although i was something of a hostage in iran in washington where i told my family that they probably wouldn't see much of me until the hostages just came home and that partly turned out to be true, but i can't compare my experience to those of the peo