Nations decry Iranian threat against IAEA general director
Member nations of the International Atomic Energy Agency called out Iran Monday for threats made against Rafael Grossi, the organization’s top official.
“Any undermining, sanctioning or even threat against the director general personally or his staff are completely unacceptable,” posted Austria’s Chancellor Christian Stocker to X on Monday.
The French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs released a statement Monday that it “strongly condemns the threats against the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.”
The French statement was further echoed by a joint press release from France, Germany and the United Kingdom that condemned “threats against the Director General of the IAEA Rafael Grossi.”
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, spoke Sunday on the CBS News program “Face The Nation” and said that there was no threat made to Grossi, despite an article that ran last week in Iran’s ultra-conservative Kayhan newspaper that alleged Grossi to be a spy for Israel, and that “as soon as he enters Iran, he will be tried and executed for spying for Mossad and participating in the murder of the oppressed people of our country.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had responded Saturday on X that “calls in Iran for the arrest and execution of IAEA Director General Grossi are unacceptable and should be condemned.”
Iravani, however, when asked by CBS if he condemned calls for Grossi to be executed, replied, “Yeah.”
He also explained that IAEA inspectors already in Iran are safe but are not being permitted to inspect nuclear sites there.
“It is our assessment is that they have not done their jobs,” Iravani said, and implied the IAEA “failed” in regard to the attacks made by Israel and the United States on Iranian nuclear facilities.
In the joint statement made by Britain, France and Germany, the countries called on “Iranian authorities to refrain from any steps to cease cooperation with the IAEA.
“We urge Iran to immediately resume full cooperation in line with its legally binding obligations, and to take all necessary steps to ensure the safety and security of IAEA personnel,” the statement continued.
“The organization’s work is now more important than ever and must urgently be continued,” said Stocker in the same X post he made Monday.
The IAEA had announced in a press release Friday that radiation levels in the Gulf region had remained normal following the attacks on Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and the Tehran Research Reactor.
Grossi explained in the release that the attacks “could have caused a radiological accident with potential consequences in Iran as well as beyond its borders.”
“It did not happen, and the worst nuclear safety scenario was thereby avoided,” Grossi said.
Minister says Iran intends to continue nuclear program
Iran has said it intends to continue its nuclear program, even in the wake of its war with Israel.
“As long as the Islamic Republic of Iran is a member of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), it must be able to exercise its rights,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Baghai said in Tehran on Monday.
“Iran’s rights as a member of this treaty are perfectly clear – including the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy,” Baghai said.
Israel attacked Iran on June 13, bombing targets across the country. The government cited Iran’s controversial nuclear program as justification and its suspicions that the Islamic Republic plans to build a nuclear bomb.
Iran denies this and responded with missile and drone attacks on Israel.
After 12 days of war, during which the U.S. dropped its most powerful conventional weapons on a key Iranian nuclear site, a ceasefire is now in place.
Baghai went on to say that a new Iranian law temporarily suspending cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was binding on his government. He rejected the IAEA’s demands for access to Iranian nuclear facilities.
“How can we be expected to guarantee the safety of the agency’s inspectors under conditions where peaceful Iranian nuclear facilities were attacked just five or six days ago?” he added.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi had previously told the BBC that Iran insisted on being allowed to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
President Donald Trump has said that he would “absolutely” consider bombing Iran again if the country enriched uranium to a higher level.
Iran reports 935 dead in war against Israel
A total of 935 Iranians were killed in the brief war with Israel, according to official figures released on Monday.
Iran’s forensic medicine department said the dead include 38 children and 132 women, the state news agency IRNA reported, citing a spokesman for the judicial authorities.
A few days ago, the Ministry of Health put the number of injured at 4,870.
The U.S.-based human rights network HRANA reported a higher death toll of 1,190 people, including at least 436 civilians.
The activists base their figures on informants and publicly available sources.
Dpa contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
This story was originally published June 30, 2025 at 12:18 PM