Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, confirmed Wednesday that the country’s nuclear facilities had been “badly damaged” in American strikes over the weekend.
Speaking on Al Jazeera, Baghaei refused to go into detail but conceded the strikes on Sunday by American B-2 bombers using bunker-buster bombs had been significant.
“Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure,” he said.
Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Wednesday his country’s assessment was also that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “significantly damaged” and its nuclear program “set it back by years.”
U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at a NATO summit in the Netherlands that it was going “very well.”
“They’re not going to have a bomb and they’re not going to enrich,” Trump said about Iran.
Trump at another point compared the strikes to the American atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end to the Second World War in 1945.
“I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war. This ended the war,” Trump said.
The president took umbrage at reports that emerged Tuesday, which indicated that a report issued by the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency suggested Iran’s nuclear program may have been set back only by a matter of months.
Anger in Tehran at UN nuclear agency
Meanwhile, Iran’s parliament approved a bill on Wednesday to suspend co-operation with the UN nuclear watchdog, state-affiliated outlet Nournews reported.
The move, which needs the final approval of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council to be enforced, Nournews said
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf was quoted by state media as also saying Iran would accelerate its civilian nuclear program.
Baghaei seemed to suggest Iran might not shut out IAEA inspectors for good, noting that the bill before parliament only talks of suspending work with the agency, not ending it. He also insisted Iran has the right to pursue a nuclear energy program.
U.S. President Donald Trump justified bombing key Iranian nuclear facilities by claiming Iran was dangerously close to developing a nuclear weapon. But how could he be so sure? Andrew Chang examines Iran’s claim that its uranium enrichment program is purely for civilian energy — and why much of the West remains skeptical.
Images provided by Getty Images, The Canadian Press and Reuters.
In Vienna, IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said he had already written to Iran to discuss resuming inspections of their facilities.
Among other things, Iran claims to have moved its highly enriched uranium ahead of the American strikes and Grossi said his inspectors needed to reassess the country’s stockpiles.
“We need to return,” he said. “We need to engage.”
Grossi said he could not speculate on how bad the damage was but that Iran’s nuclear capabilities were well known.
“The technical knowledge is there, and the industrial capacity is there,” he said. “That, no one can deny, so we need to work together with them.”
Earlier this week, the Iranian parliament’s national security committee approved the bill’s general outline and the committee’s spokesperson, Ebrahim Rezaei, said the bill would suspend the installation of surveillance cameras, inspections and filing of reports to the IAEA.
Following the Israeli attacks on its nuclear sites, and U.S. bombing of underground Iranian nuclear facilities at the weekend, the Iranian government also faces calls to limit the country’s commitments to the nuclear non-proliferation regime.
In an interview with Qatar’s Al-Araby Al-Jadeed on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said: “I think that our view on our nuclear program and the non-proliferation regime will witness changes, but it is not possible to say in what direction.”
