A loud noise heard in the outskirts of the town of Karaj, near the Iranian capital Tehran, on Wednesday was caused by a rocket fired by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during a training exercise, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported.

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"The loud noise heard this afternoon in the suburbs of Karaj was caused by the firing of a rocket during a training exercise from one of the IRGC's bases, which has caused some speculations and rumors online," a spokesperson for the IRGC told IRNA.

In recent months Iran has experienced a spate of mysterious attacks on its nuclear installations and other key facilities, with the regime officials laying the blame on Israel.  One of the attacks was on a facility that manufactures centrifuge parts. In the wake of that attack, Iran stopped for a while the work of international inspectors there, claiming it could not replace the cameras.

The latest explosion comes a day after Iran marked the two-year anniversary of the killing of the IRGC's Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani, who was in charge of spreading Iranian terrorist activities in the region.

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Iran said Sunday it had begun technical inspections of new surveillance cameras for the Karaj nuclear facility after Tehran said previous cameras were damaged in an attack it blamed on Israel.

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According to French news agency AFP, the new cameras, provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency, are to replace those Iran has claimed were damaged on June 23 during an Israeli "sabotage" operation.

Tehran and the Vienna-based IAEA announced Wednesday that they had reached an agreement on replacing the cameras at the TESA nuclear complex in Karaj, west of Tehran, a facility that makes centrifuges.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, listed the three conditions set by Tehran for the reinstallation.

Iran demands "carrying out judicial and security investigations on the dimensions of sabotage; condemnation [of the alleged act of sabotage] by the IAEA; and technical and security inspections of the cameras before installation," he said, speaking on state television.

"The authorization given by Iran did not come in the form of a new agreement, but after the three prerequisites were met," Kamalvandi added.

The IAEA was not able to recover the camera memory cards destroyed in June, and on Friday the IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said he had "doubts" over a missing camera memory unit.

Suspicions have been raised in Iran that June's attack could have been enabled by the hacking of the cameras.

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Grossi, however, dismissed that suggestion as "absurd," insisting the monitors were tamper-proof and that, once installed they had no means of remote data transmission.

For the rest of the cameras at Karaj, as well as at other sites where the IAEA's activity has been restricted since February, Iran has said the footage will only be available to the IAEA once US sanctions are lifted.

How and when Iran could get sanctions relief is one of the topics being discussed at the Vienna talks.

i24NEWS contributed to this report.

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Iran has allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency, to replace its cameras at a centrifuge parts workshop, according to an Iranian media outlet affiliated to Iran's top security body. This was confirmed by three diplomats on Wednesday.

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"Due to legal and security checks on the affected cameras, as well as the IAEA's steps to condemn the act of vandalism against the Tessa complex, Iran has voluntarily authorized the agency to replace the damaged cameras with new ones," Nournews said on Wednesday.

"Iran made it clear from the outset that it would not be allowed to service or replace the cameras until the responsible bodies conducted their security and technical checks on the cameras," Nournews added.

The Tessa workshop in Karaj was the victim of apparent sabotage in June in which one of four IAEA cameras there was destroyed. Iran did not return that camera's "data storage medium" and the IAEA asked Iran in a September report to locate it and explain.

One of the IAEA's four cameras at the workshop in the TESA Karaj complex was destroyed in an apparent sabotage attack in June that Iran has blamed on Israel. Iran then removed the cameras and has not let the IAEA return to replace them, angering the United States and its allies. The diplomats said the details of the agreement were not yet clear.

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With less than two weeks to go before nuclear talks between Iran and western powers are slated to restart in Vienna, the Iranian regime appears to have stepped up its production of sensitive equipment, in particular components of centrifuges, US officials have told the Wall Street Journal.

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According to the WSJ report, unidentified diplomats familiar with Tehran's activities have claimed that the Karaj facility – located some 50 km. (31 miles) northwest of Tehran – restarted activity in August, and operations have since ramped up.

Until recently, the Karaj site was under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, but that oversight was stopped after an explosion that Iran attributed to Israel damaged some of the equipment that was being used to document activity at the location.

The sources expressed concern that Iran could divert advanced centrifuges to undeclared sites to move closer to a nuclear weapon.

One diplomat suggested that enough parts for 170 centrifuges have been produced since the facility reopened.

Since the renewal of production, Iran has refused to allow IAEA inspectors access to the site, the WSJ reported.

In September, Iran acknowledged that it removed surveillance cameras installed by nuclear inspectors.

While there is reportedly no evidence that Iran is planning to move the centrifuge parts into a weapons program, one sourced diplomat suggested that "as the number of unmonitored centrifuges increases, the likelihood for this scenario increases."

i24NEWS contributed to this report

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