The Israeli military also confirmed they targeted roads around Iran’s Fordo enrichment facility to hinder access to the site. The underground facility was among the targets hit in Sunday’s attack by the United States on three nuclear facilities. The Israeli military did not provide further details.
During the Tehran attacks, Israel’s Defence Ministry reported they targeted locations such as the infamous Evin Prison in the Iranian capital and the security headquarters of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards.
On Monday, the European Union’s top diplomat said the bloc remained “very much focused on the diplomatic solution”.
“The concerns over retaliation and the potential for this conflict to escalate are significant,” Kaja Kallas stated at the beginning of a foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels where Iran has become a priority on the agenda.
After Sunday’s attacks, Iranian officials repeated their longtime threats of possibly closing the key shipping lane.
Iran, which insists its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only, previously agreed to limit its uranium enrichment and allow international inspectors access to its nuclear sites under a 2015 deal with the US, France, China, Russia, Britain and Germany in exchange for sanctions relief.
But after Trump pulled the US unilaterally out of the deal during his first term, Iran began enriching uranium up to 60 per cent — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent — and restricting access to its nuclear facilities.
As he arrived in Brussels on Monday for a meeting with his EU counterparts, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul renewed calls for Iran to agree again to direct talks with the US but said Europe still had a role to play.
“We already made it very clear to the Iranian side that a real precondition for a settlement to the conflict is that Iran be ready to negotiate directly with the US,” he said, while adding that the European group known as the E3 “will contribute what we can”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was meeting on Monday in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin, one of Iran’s key allies.
