IAEA Director General Grossi warned that a radiation leak cannot be ruled out and called for an urgent return to diplomacy.
Al Mayadeen
March 2nd
Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed on Monday that the Natanz nuclear facility was struck during the ongoing US-Israeli aggression against the Islamic Republic. While IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi warned that a radiation leak with potentially catastrophic consequences cannot be ruled out, even as the agency acknowledged it had lost contact with Iranian nuclear authorities.
Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Reza Najafi, told reporters on the sidelines of Monday's extraordinary board of governors session in Vienna that Natanz, Iran's uranium enrichment facility, was hit during US-Israeli operations.
"Again they attacked Iran's peaceful, safeguarded nuclear facilities yesterday," Najafi told Reuters, confirming Natanz by name when asked which facilities were targeted.
IAEA: situation 'extremely worrying'
Addressing the emergency session, Grossi warned that the situation was "extremely worrying," stressing that a radiological release could not be excluded; one potentially severe enough to require evacuating areas as large as or larger than major cities.
The IAEA's Incident and Emergency Centre has been placed on active alert, with a dedicated team continuously collecting information and assessing the situation around the clock. The agency's regional safety monitoring network has also been put on alert and is liaising with the IEC continuously.
So far, no elevation of radiation levels above normal background has been detected in countries bordering Iran, though the agency acknowledged that communications blackouts caused by the conflict have significantly limited its ability to assess conditions inside the country.
Grossi also confirmed that all efforts to re-establish contact with Iranian nuclear regulatory authorities through the IAEA's emergency channel have so far gone unanswered.
Notably, Grossi's statement made no mention of who carried out the strikes on Iran, referring only to "military attacks" and "military operations" without identifying the United States or "Israel" by name.
A deal that was within reach
Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who had been shepherding negotiations between Washington and Tehran, revealed hours before the joint aggression that Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling of enriched uranium, going further than the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, subject to full IAEA verification.
"If the ultimate objective is to ensure forever that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, I think we have cracked that problem through these negotiations," Albusaidi said, estimating that three months would be needed to finalize an accord.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi corroborated the account, saying both delegations had left their Geneva session satisfied after seven hours of talks, with a deal "within reach."
Grossi himself attended the last two rounds of negotiations in Geneva and expressed deep frustration on Monday that a diplomatic understanding had not been reached. "Diplomacy is hard, but it is never impossible," he said, calling for all parties to return to the negotiating table as quickly as possible.
Radiation threats beyond Iran
Grossi also underscored that the threat extends well beyond Iran's borders. The UAE operates four nuclear reactors; Jordan and Syria have operational nuclear research reactors; and Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, all of which have been subjected to military attacks in recent days, rely on nuclear applications of various kinds.
The Director General recalled that past IAEA General Conference resolutions explicitly state that armed attacks on nuclear facilities should never take place, warning that such attacks "could result in radioactive releases with grave consequences within and beyond the boundaries of the State which has been attacked."
He urged utmost restraint in all military operations in light of these risks.
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