Ensure Iran is never a nuclear threat again: Israel's strong message to world after US strikes Tehran
The US conducted airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, including Isfahan and Fordo, using B-2 bombers. Officials, including Trump and Netanyahu, emphasised the need to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, while Iran called an emergency UN meeting to address the situation.
In an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council called by Iran, Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon lauded the US and urged world leaders to stand up to Iran’s nuclear threat and US's strikes at Iran's nuclear sites "removed the greatest existential threat facing the free world”.
Danon on Sunday said diplomacy was tried numerous times but alleged Iran “used the negotiating table as camouflage, a delay tactic, a way to buy time while building missiles and enriching uranium”. He added Israel gave Iran years, but it wouldn't move, so Israel decided to act and “when the world stood at the edge of a nuclear catastrophe, America stepped forward”.
He mentioned world must ensure Iran does not become a nuclear threat again.
US ‘decided to destroy diplomacy’
Iran's UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani stated, “Iran had repeatedly warned the warmongering US regime to refrain from stumbling into this quagmire”.
The US “decided to destroy diplomacy” as it bombed Iran's nuclear sites and the Iranian military will decide the "timing, nature and scale of Iran's proportionate response”, he asserted.
Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General, warned against "descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation".
Vice-President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on US strikes in Iran
Vice President JD Vance stated the US air strikes had "set the Iranian nuclear programme back substantially".
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated the Trump-ordered strikes had "devastated the Iranian nuclear programme", but "did not target Iranian troops or the Iranian people". He further said the US president "seeks peace", noting, “This mission was not, and has not, been about regime change.”
About US strikes
The attack struck Isfahan, Natanz, and the underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, with Iranian media reporting that all three locations were hit on Saturday night.
US Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine stated that seven B-2 stealth bombers flew for 18 hours to deliver 14 GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs, a powerful weapon weighing 13,600 kilograms (30,000 pounds).
Trump said Iran "must now agree to end this war", insisting that under no situation should it have a nuclear weapon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, "thanks to President Trump, we have moved closer to our goals".
(With inputs from PTI and AFP)
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