Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have shot down a radar-evading Israeli spy drone that was trying to penetrate Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site in the center of the country, state news agency ISNA said on Sunday, quoting the Revolutionary Guards.
ISNA said the Revolutionary Guards had shot down the drone with a ground-to-air missile when it tried to penetrate “the nuclear off-limits area of Natanz.”
“A spy drone of the Zionist regime (Israel) was brought down by a missile... This stealth drone was trying to approach the Natanz nuclear zone,” Agence France-Presse quoted the corps as saying in a statement on its official website sepahnews.com.
Reuters, meanwhile, reported the Israeli military as saying that it did not comment on foreign reports.
Israel and the West suspect Iran of planning to build a nuclear bomb.
While the West attempted to use diplomacy to pressure Iran to let go of its nuclear program, Israel doubted such approach.
Netanyahu: ‘Military option necessary’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that a “military option” was “necessary” for the success of negotiations aimed at reining in Iran’s disputed nuclear program.
Netanyahu’s statement came after a landmark deal between the West and Iran under which the Tehran will freeze or curb some of its atomic activities in return for limited relief from crippling international sanctions.
To its drive for diplomacy, Iran said on Sunday that its foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will meet EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Sep. 1 in Brussels to agree a framework for renewed nuclear talks.
Ashton is the lead negotiator for the six major powers seeking to reach a comprehensive agreement with Iran to allay long-standing international concerns about its nuclear program by Nov. 24.
The two sides had been working to a July target date but then they agreed to extend it to give more time to reach a historic deal.
The new round of full talks will take place in New York ahead of the opening of the U.N. General Assembly on Sep. 16, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told IRNA.
*Agencies