Iran says nuclear arms-control treaty irreparably damaged after US strikes
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The news: Iran’s envoy for the International Atomic Energy Agency, Reza Najafi, said that US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend have caused an “irreparable blow” to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), rendering it ineffective.
The context: Speaking from Vienna on Monday, Bloomberg reports, Najafi said that the US attacks were an act of aggression that “delivered a fundamental and irreparable blow to the international non-proliferation regime conclusively demonstrating that the existing NPT framework has been rendered ineffective.”
Najafi did not specify whether Iran would plan to leave the NPT, a move which would likely mean that the UN’s nuclear watchdog would not be able to inspect the country’s atomic facilities.
The news comes as Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, with Putin calling the US strikes “unprovoked aggression” that “has no ground and no justification.” Putin told Araghchi in the Kremlin on Monday that “making efforts to assist the Iranian people”, without elaborating.
Earlier on Monday, local media reports said that Israel had struck Iran’s Fordow nuclear site again. The spokesperson for crisis management in the province of Qom, where Fordow is located, said that the site was hit again by did not give further details.
Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said on Monday that the agency expects the US air strikes to have caused “very significant damage” to the Fordow nuclear site. The US dropped several bunker-buster bombs on the site on the weekend when it also carried out strikes on two other key Iranian nuclear facilities.
Also on Monday, Israel’s defence ministry said that it had targeted the Evin Prison in Tehran, which is known for housing political prisoners. The ministry said that the round of air attacks which hit the prison also targets the internal security headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards and the “Israel Destruction” clock in Palestine Square. Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s foreign minister, said via X that the attack on the prison was a “response” to Iran’s targeting of Israeli cities.
The sources: IAEA, ISNA via Kuwait News Agency, Bloomberg, Bloomberg, FT
