Iran’s top diplomat says it ‘reserves all options’ for self-defense following U.S. strikes : NPR

Iran’s top diplomat says the country reserves the right to defend itself after the U.S. military carried out a series of overnight attacks on several of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the American operation an “outrageous, grave and unprecedented violation” of the United Nations Charter and international law.

“The war-mongering and lawless administration in Washington is solely and fully responsible for the dangerous consequences and far-reaching implications of its act of aggression,” Araghchi said during a press conference in Istanbul.

He added that Iran “reserves all options to defend its security interests and people.”

Araghchi also accused the Trump administration, which had recently been in talks with Iran over its nuclear program, of having “betrayed diplomacy.”

Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, condemned the strikes in a letter to U.N. leaders as “unprovoked and premeditated acts of aggression.”

Iravani requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, where the U.S. is a permanent member, to address the attacks on the Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan nuclear sites.

President Trump said in a Saturday evening address from the White House that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”

But Mohammad Manan Raisi, a member of Iran’s parliament representing Qom, has said Fordo did not sustain serious damage, Reuters reported.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, said in a statement that Iranian nuclear officials reported there hadn’t been a spike in off-site radiation levels following the U.S. strikes.

“As of this time, we don’t expect that there will be any health consequences for people or the environment outside the targeted sites,” Grossi added.