UNITED NATIONS: The Middle East risks a nuclear catastrophe if Israel strikes Iran’s southern nuclear plant of Bushehr, the head of the UN atomic watchdog warned on Friday.

Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the UN Security Council that he has not yet detected radiation resulting from Israel’s week-long bombing against Iran, including attacks on nuclear sites.

But he said that a strike on Bushehr, the Middle East’s first civilian nuclear reactor, would spell the most serious consequences as it contains thousands of kilograms of nuclear material.

“Countries of the region have reached out directly to me over the past few hours to express their concerns, and I want to make it absolutely and completely clear that in case of an attack on the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a direct hit would result in a very high release of radioactivity,” Grossi said.

He warned of equally dire consequences even if Israel strikes the lines that supply electricity to Bushehr, saying such disabling of power could trigger a meltdown.

In a worst-case scenario, evacuations and orders to take shelter would need to be issued for areas within several hundred kilometres of Bushehr, which would include population centers in Gulf countries, a major artery of the global economy.

The population would also need to take iodine and may see restrictions in food supply, Grossi said.

Construction on Bushehr began in the 1970s as the pro-Western Shah sought to develop civilian nuclear power.

German scientists initially worked on the plant, but since the 1990s Tehran has worked with Russia to develop and maintain Bushehr.

Grossi appealed for a diplomatic solution and repeated his willingness to travel to negotiate a deal.

“The IAEA can guarantee through a watertight inspection system that nuclear weapons will not be developed in Iran,” he said.

Third aircraft carrier

The USS Gerald R. Ford will depart for Europe next week, a Navy official said on Friday, placing a third American aircraft carrier in proximity to the Middle East.

“The Gerald Ford carrier strike group will depart Norfolk (Virginia) the morning of June 24 for a regularly scheduled deployment to the US European Command area of responsibility,” the official said.

The USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group has been operating in the Middle East since earlier this year, taking part in an air campaign against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis. And a defence official has confirmed that Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth ordered the Nimitz carrier strike group to the Middle East, saying it was “to sustain our defensive posture and safeguard American personnel”.

President Trump said on Thursday he would take a decision on intervention in the Iran-Israel conflict within two weeks, citing a chance of negotiations to end the war.

That deadline comes after a tense few days in which the US president publicly mulled hitting Iran and said that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was an “easy target”.

Trump had spent weeks pursuing a diplomatic path towards a deal to replace the nuclear deal with Iran that he tore up in his first term in 2018, but has since backed Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and military top brass.

A key issue is that the United States is the only country with the huge “bunker buster” bombs that could destroy Iran’s crucial Fordo nuclear enrichment plant.

A number of key figures in his “Make America Great Again” movement have vocally opposed US strikes on Iran, and Trump’s promise to extract the United States from its “forever wars”

in the Middle East played a role in his 2016 and 2024 election wins.

Published in Dawn, June 21th, 2025