Middle East Monitoring Desk Islamabad
Despite US President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated assurances that on March 23 he had ordered a five-day pause in attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure, a new highly dangerous strike was carried out on March 24 in the immediate vicinity of Unit 1 of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant.
We are deeply outraged by this reckless and irresponsible manifestation of a destructive course.
It gives the impression that the aggressors are deliberately seeking to trigger a large-scale nuclear catastrophe in the region in order to conceal and justify their criminal actions, which have already resulted in numerous innocent civilian casualties in Iran.
The US and Israel must understand as well as we do that any strike on the Bushehr NPP would inevitably lead to irreversible humanitarian and environmental consequences. It is only by sheer luck that tragedy has so far been avoided. Yet the strikes are being carried out ever closer to the operating power unit.
The lives of the plant’s personnel, including Russian specialists, remain under constant threat. This is categorically unacceptable to us.
We demand that those who launched this reckless, irresponsible and unprovoked attack on Iran come to their senses and put an end to their unprovoked aggression, including strikes on Iran’s nuclear energy infrastructure covered by the IAEA Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, as well as on facilities located in its immediate vicinity.
We expect a clear, unequivocal position and resolute action from the IAEA, the UN and their leadership in order to prevent any further attacks of this kind.
It is second time the most sensitive nuclear facility has been hit. Earlier on 18 March The International Atomic Energy Agency said that “following information from Iran of a projectile incident on Tuesday evening, the IAEA can confirm that a structure 350 metres from the Bushehr NPP reactor was hit and destroyed”.
