UNITED NATIONS, US
Iran temporarily closed its
nuclear facilities over “security considerations” in the wake of its massive
missile and drone attack on Israel over the weekend, the head of the UN’s
atomic watchdog said Monday.International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi, attends IAEA Board of Governors emergency meeting in Vienna, Austria on April 11, 2024 (Courtesy)
Speaking to journalists on the
sidelines of a UN Security Council meeting, International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi was asked whether he was concerned about the
possibility of an Israeli strike on an Iranian nuclear facility in retaliation
for the unprecedented attack.
“We are always concerned about
this possibility. What I can tell you is that our inspectors in Iran were
informed by the Iranian government that yesterday [Sunday], all the nuclear
facilities that we are inspecting every day would remain closed on security
considerations,” he said.
The facilities reopened on
Monday, but Grossi decided not to let the inspectors return until Tuesday,
promising that escalating tensions between Israel and Iran have “not had an
impact on our inspection activity.”
“I decided to not let the
inspectors return until we see that the situation is completely calm,” he
added, while calling for “extreme restraint.”
Iran launched more than 300
drones and missiles at Israel overnight from Saturday into Sunday morning in
what marked its first direct attack on Israeli territory.
The barrage came in
retaliation for an alleged Israeli airstrike on what Tehran said was an Iranian
consular building in Damascus that killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps soldiers, including two generals.
Israel and its allies shot
down the vast majority of the drones and missiles and the attack caused only
one injury, but concerns about a potential Israeli reprisal have nevertheless
stoked fears of all-out regional war.
For years, Israel has accused
Iran of wanting to acquire an atomic bomb, and has said that it will not allow
it to happen. Tehran denies the accusations.
Iran has blamed Israel for the
deaths of many of those involved in its nuclear program, including its top
nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated with a
remote-controlled machine gun while traveling in a car outside Tehran in 2020.
Also in 2010, a sophisticated
cyberattack using the Stuxnet virus, attributed by Tehran to Israel and the
United States, led to a series of breakdowns in Iranian centrifuges used for
uranium enrichment.
In 1981, Israel bombed the
Osirak nuclear reactor in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, despite opposition from
Washington. And in 2018, it admitted to having launched a top-secret air raid
against a reactor in Syria 11 years prior.
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