By Staff Reporter
The UN nuclear watchdog announced that radiation levels in the Gulf region remain normal following the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran.
Howevem, in a statement published on Thursday, the IAEA’s Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi clarified that the air war between the two countries severely damaged several nuclear facilities in Iran.
Many Iranian nuclear sites like Bushehr and Fordow were targeted in Israeli and US strikes during the conflict which ended with a surprise announcement of ceasefire by US President Donald Trump early on Tuesday.
Grossi stated that a 48-nation network would have detected a major radioactive release from any damaged nuclear power reactor. He said regional data were reported regularly to the IAEA through the International Radiation Monitoring System (IRMIS).
“From a nuclear safety perspective, Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and the Tehran Research Reactor represented our main concern as any strike affecting those facilities –including their off-site power lines– could have caused a radiological accident with potential consequences in Iran as well as beyond its borders in the case of the Bushehr plant,” Gossi added.
He said that this did not happen, and “the worst nuclear safety scenario was thereby avoided”.
He also stressed again that nuclear facilities should never be attacked, while pointing to the need for IAEA inspectors to continue their verification activities in Iran.
On Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that a bill suspending cooperation with the IAEA was now “binding” after being passed by lawmakers and approved by a top vetting body.
