US-Israeli airstrikes targeted Natanz enrichment facility: Iran

AP

Vienna

Iran’s Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Monday, alleged that airstrikes by the United States and Israel targeted the Natanz enrichment facility in his country.

That contradicts an assessment by the UN nuclear watchdog chief, Rafael Grossi, who said that “up to now” the agency has “no indication” that nuclear facilities have been hit in Iran.

“Again, they attacked Iran’s peaceful safeguarded nuclear facilities yesterday. Their justification that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons is simply a big lie,” Reza Najafi told reporters at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, where a special session of the Board of Governors is being held at the request of Russia.

When asked by a reporter which nuclear facility he was referring to, Najafi replied, “Natanz.”

The Natanz site, some 220 kilometres south of the capital, is a mix of above- and below-ground laboratories that did the majority of Iran’s uranium enrichment.

Before the war, the IAEA said Iran used advanced centrifuges there to enrich uranium up to 60 per cent – a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent. Some of the material is presumed to have been onsite when the entire complex was attacked last June.

The main above-ground enrichment building at Natanz was known as the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant. Israel hit the building on June 13, leaving it “functionally destroyed,” and seriously damaging underground halls holding cascades of centrifuges, the IAEA’s director-general, Rafael Grossi, said at the time. A US follow-up attack on June 22 hit Natanz’s underground facilities with bunker-busting bombs, likely decimating what remained.

Addressing the special session of the Board of Governors, IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi said that “up to now” the International Atomic Energy Agency has “no indication that any of the nuclear installations, including the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, the Tehran Research Reactor or other nuclear fuel cycle facilities” in Iran have been damaged or hit.

He added that the IAEA continues to try to contact the Iranian nuclear regulatory authorities via the IAEA’s own Incident and Emergency Centre “with no response so far,” given the limitations in communications caused by the conflict.

Grossi urged military restraint, warning that Iran and many other countries in the region that have been targeted militarily have “operational nuclear power plants and nuclear research reactors, as well as associated fuel storage sites, increasing the threat to nuclear safety.”

He added that so far “no elevation of radiation levels above the usual background levels has been detected in countries bordering Iran.”

Najafi added that the US uses “deception and disinformation to invade other countries.” He said that the war was launched by US President Donald Trump, “who attempts to portray himself as a man of peace and asking for the Nobel Peace Prize. Even when they talk about peace, it is a lie. And if they call for diplomacy, it’s about deception,” he said.

Najafi said that the strikes against his country are “unlawful, criminal and brutal” and called on states of the 35-member IAEA Board of Governors to “categorically condemn” the attacks.