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Last month’s drone attack on the UAE’s Barakah nuclear plant was a “serious compromise of nuclear safety, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Friday, adding any such attack “is unacceptable, a no-go, taboo.”
The May 17 attack hit an electricity facility at the plant, risking potentially shutting it down, and IAEA chief Rafael Grossi warned that “attacks on nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful purposes are unacceptable”.
“The strike caused a fire in an electrical generator located outside the inner site perimeter of the NPP (nuclear power plant), prompting the need for emergency generators to provide power,” Grossi told an IAEA board meeting in Vienna.
The meeting was held at the request of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
During a visit to the plant last Tuesday Grossi said the attack could have interrupted the external power supply. On Friday he hailed the “professionalism and alertness” of the IAEA-trained on-duty team at the site who he said were able to “respond promptly and effectively to the unthinkable: a direct impact caused by a drone with an explosive payload.”
He said the IAEA would closely support the plant to ensure its safety, having during his visit said that the plant had been the victim of a “very carefully targeted operation” by attackers seeking to cause a major incident.
In any case, “the incident was a serious compromise of nuclear safety and undermined several of the IAEA’s seven indispensable pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during an armed conflict,” Grossi said.
