The UN nuclear watchdog chief said Saturday after meetings with Iranian officials in Tehran that any military attack on a nuclear facility was illegal.

Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi was initially referring to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia plant, which has come under repeated attack amid the Russian invasion, with Moscow receiving increasing military backing from Tehran.

However, Grossi said that the principle stood for all nuclear facilities around the world.

“I think any attack, any military attack on a nuclear facility is outlaw [sic], is out of the normative structures that we all abide by,” Grossi said at a press conference in Tehran.

“We certainly hope that we are going to be able to protect the nuclear power plant which is under threat now, which is [Ukraine’s] Zaporizhzhia,” Grossi said. “But this is valid and applicable to every nuclear facility in the world.”

Israel is suspected of launching a series of attacks on Iranian nuclear and military sites, including an April 2021 assault on the underground Natanz facility that damaged its centrifuges. In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for a sophisticated attack that killed its top military nuclear scientist.

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