Rafael Grossi, chief of the United Nations’s atomic watchdog, has warned that an Israeli strike on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant could trigger a regional catastrophe, as the two countries continue to trade attacks for the eighth straight day.The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the UN Security Council on Friday that a direct hit on Russian-built Bushehr, located on the the Gulf coast, could “result in a very high release of radioactivity”, with “great consequences” beyond Iran’s borders.
“I, therefore, again call for maximum restraint,” said Grossi, telling delegates at an emergency session on the Iran-Israel conflict that armed attacks on nuclear facilities should never take place.
In a worst-case scenario, a strike on Bushehr, which contains “thousands of kilogrammes of nuclear material”, would require evacuation orders to be issued for areas within several hundred kilometres of the plant, including population centres in other Gulf countries, he said.
Grossi said that a strike on the two lines that supply electricity to Bushehr could cause its reactor core to melt, with dire consequences.
Authorities would have to take protective actions, administering iodine to populations and potentially restricting food supplies, with subsequent radiation monitoring covering distances of several hundred kilometres.
Grossi appealed for a diplomatic solution and repeated his willingness to travel to negotiate a deal.
“The IAEA can guarantee through a watertight inspection system that nuclear weapons will not be developed in Iran,” he said. Advertisement
Grossi made his comments as Iranian news portal rouydad24 reported that air defence …
