Israel Retracts Claim About Bushehr Nuclear Plant
Israeli claim of striking Iran’s only nuclear power plant reversed, raising alarm over safety and escalating tensions with Iran.
- Publish date: since 6 days
Israel claimed on Thursday, June 19, that it struck Iran's only functioning power plant along the Gulf coast; however, an Israeli military official backtracked on the statement, creating confusion over what happened.
The military official said, "It was a mistake" to say that they had hit the Bushehr Nuclear Plant.
The confusion happened after Israel targeted nuclear sites in Iran, following the latter's missile attacks on Israel earlier on Thursday, on the seventh day of the Iran-Israel war.
Israel attacked the nuclear sites in Natanz, Isfahan and Arak in Iran, according to an Israeli military official.
The Bushehr power plant is located near the UAE and employs technicians from Russia. It is the only functioning nuclear power plant in Iran and uses Russian fuel, which Moscow takes back to cut down proliferation risk.
An attack on this nuclear plant would be a big step; when the Israeli military official was asked about the attack on Bushehr, he said that he could neither confirm nor deny it.
The CEO of Russia's nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev, said, "If there is a strike on the operational first power unit, it will be a catastrophe comparable to Chernobyl."
Likhachev confirmed that Russian specialists had been removed from the nuclear power plant, but hundreds of people from the workforce remained on site.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalists on Thursday that Israel had promised him that Moscow's workers at the Bushehr site will be safe.
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