Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday condemned the head of the International Atomic Energy Association, Rafael Grossi, for comments he made against a possible Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, calling them “inept”.
Grossi, who had just returned from a trip to Tehran, Said on Saturday that “any military attack on a nuclear facility is illegal, outside the regulatory framework we all follow,” when asked about threats from the United States and Israel to attack Iran if its nuclear Negotiations to stop the program have been unsuccessful.
“Rafael Grossi is a qualified person who made an unqualified comment,” Netanyahu said in response to the weekly cabinet meeting. “Illegal by what law? Is Iran, which publicly calls for our destruction, allowed to defend its weapons of destruction that will kill us?”
“Are we forbidden to defend ourselves?” He added. “Of course, we are allowed to, and of course, we are doing it… Nothing will stop us from defending our country and destroying the oppressors, the Jewish state.”
Netanyahu referred to the Jewish festival of Purim, which was to take place this week, when “2,500 years ago, a persecutor arose in Persia who wanted to exterminate the Jews.
“They didn’t succeed then, they won’t succeed today,” he said, referring to the efforts of Haman, the villain in the Bible’s book of Esther.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Organization, arrives for a meeting with Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, as he is received by a spokesman for Iran’s nuclear agency Behrouz Kamalvandi in Tehran, March 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Grossi arrived in Iran on Friday amid an impasse in talks on reviving a landmark 2015 accord to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear activity, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.
After the meeting, Iran agreed to reconnect the surveillance cameras Grossi called on Saturday to speed up more inspections at several nuclear sites.
uranium particles enriched by 83.7 percent According to a confidential IAEA report, only slightly less than 90% of what is needed to make a nuclear bomb was found at Iran’s underground Fordo plant, about 100 kilometers (60 mi) south of the capital.
The JCPOA limits Tehran’s uranium stockpile to 300 kg and enrichments to 3.67% – enough to fuel a nuclear power plant. The unilateral US withdrawal from the accord in 2018 triggered a series of attacks and escalation by Tehran over its programme.
Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says it has made no efforts to enrich uranium beyond 60% purity.
Iran’s government claimed that “unexpected fluctuations … may occur” during the enrichment process.
The discovery came after Iran substantially modified the interconnection between two centrifuge groups that enriched uranium without declaring it to the IAEA.
Netanyahu has threatened military actions against Tehran, and Israel and Iran have been engaged in a high-stakes shadow war across the wider Middle East since the collapse of the nuclear deal.
Israel is suspected of launching a series of attacks on Iranian nuclear and military sites, including an April 2021 attack on the underground Natanz facility that damaged its centrifuges. In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for a sophisticated attack that killed its top military nuclear scientist.
