Key Points

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said, "Any military action that jeopardises the safety and security of nuclear facilities risks grave consequences for the people of Iran, the region, and beyond."

The IAEA General Council has declared that military attacks on nuclear facilities violate the UN Charter and international law, he said.

UN Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo told the Council Emergency session convened at the request of Iran, "We must at all costs avoid a growing conflagration which would have enormous global consequences".

She said that Israel attacked Iran as "significant diplomatic developments" were afoot with talks between Washington and Tehran set to resume in Oman on Sunday. Iran has pulled out of the negotiations.

DiCarlo said, "A peaceful resolution through negotiations remains the best means to ensure the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme".

A senior US State Department official, McCoy Pitt, said the US was still willing to negotiate.

"We seek a secure peace", he said. "As President Trump said, the violence should come to an end, and Iran should make a deal so that there is 'no more death, no more destruction'. The United States will continue to seek a diplomatic resolution that ensures Iran will never acquire a nuclear weapon or pose a threat to stability in the Middle East", he said.

"Iran's leadership would be wise to negotiate at this time", he added.

During US President Donald Trump's first term, he pulled out of an international agreement to stop Iran's programme to produce materials for a nuclear bomb in return for removing some international sanctions.

However, recently he tried to work out a new agreement with Tehran, and those efforts have now been blocked by Israel's attack on Iran.

Iran's Permanent Representative Amir Saeid Iravani, said Israel's attack was meant "to kill diplomacy, to sabotage negotiations, and to drag the region into wider conflict".

He also accused Washington of being complicit in the Israeli attack.

Pitt denied that the US was involved in the attack, although it had been informed of it in advance.

Israel's Permanent Representative Danny Danon defended his country's action, calling it "an act of national preservation".

He displayed a picture of a countdown clock in Tehran that was timed to its plan to annihilate Israel.

Israel's mission was to "neutralise the (Iranian) regime's ability to follow through on its repeated public promise to destroy the State of Israel", he said.

Danon said the strikes in Iran were precise and targeted the nuclear facilities.

- IANS