India ‘Closely Following’ IAEA Updates on Radiation Levels at Iranian Nuclear Targets
New Delhi: India is closely following updates provided by the UN-linked nuclear watchdog in the aftermath of Israel and the US's strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, the external affairs ministry said, adding that it continues to urge for the early return of peace to the region through dialogue and diplomacy.
Asked during the ministry's weekly press conference on Thursday (June 26) about New Delhi's views on Israeli attacks on nuclear scientists in Iran, ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that India is “closely following updates” from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding radiation levels at sites struck by Israel and the US.
“We have noted that so far [that the] IAEA has reported that the targeted facilities either confirmed [sic] no nuclear material, or small quantities of natural or low enriched uranium,” Jaiswal continued, adding to acknowledge the watchdog's assessment that there was no radioactive contamination outside the buildings struck.
“We urge [a] return to the path of dialogue and diplomacy, for an early restoration of regional peace, security and stability,” said Jaiswal, who also pointed to his ministry's earlier statement expressing concern over the stability of the region following the American strikes as well as welcoming the US- and Qatari-mediated ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
Israel began striking Iranian nuclear facilities among other targets on June 13 as part of its ‘Operation Rising Lion’, which it initiated on the alleged grounds that Iran was on the cusp of obtaining a nuclear weapon, despite Tehran maintaining that its nuclear programme only serves civilian aims.
The two sides went on to fire missiles at each other over the next week and the US entered the conflict on Sunday, with its airmen bombing the three key Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Tehran retaliated by attacking a US air base in Qatar and a day later a ceasefire mediated by Washington and Doha ended hostilities.
India, which expressed concern at a number of occasions during the conflict but did not speak out against Israel or the US, had distanced itself from a statement of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation of which it is a member that strongly condemned the Israeli strikes on Iran.
However, it did not make such a move when the BRICS bloc that it is also part of expressed “grave concern” over the strikes on Iran and called them violations of international law.
The Iranian embassy in New Delhi posted a statement on Wednesday that expressed “heartfelt gratitude to all noble and freedom-loving people of India” that “stood firmly and vocally with the great nation of Iran”.
“Once again, we express our sincere appreciation for the genuine and invaluable support shown by the people and institutions of the great nation of India,” it said on X.
The IAEA had said on Tuesday that while the attacks on Iran's nuclear sites caused “some localised radioactive as well as chemical release” inside facilities “that contained nuclear material – mainly uranium enriched to varying degrees”, there was no sign of an increase in radiation outside these places.
Meanwhile, the agency's director general Rafael Grossi has estimated that Tehran's nuclear programme has suffered “serious damage” as a result of the strikes.
“I think ‘destroyed’ is going too far,” he told French broadcaster RFI when asked if the attacks had devastated the country's nuclear programme, adding however that as Iran had “focussed most of its uranium enrichment and conversion activities” at the three main sites, the programme would have suffered “very serious damage”.
It is “clear” that the centrifuges at the underground site of Fordow – which the US is reported to have struck with its ‘bunker buster’ bombs – are “no longer working”, Rossi continued.
As there is a question mark over how large a loss Iran's nuclear programme may have suffered due to the strikes, US President Donald Trump, who had claimed on Sunday that the bombing by his military “completely and totally obliterated” the three key sites, tried to undermine media reports citing intelligence assessments saying that Tehran had been set back by only a few months.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth also claimed on Thursday that he was unaware of Iran moving any highly enriched uranium away from the targeted facilities before they were bombed by his country.
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