Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, and the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran (AEOI) have condemned an alleged US military strike on the Darkhovin NPP under construction on the Karun River in the southwestern Khuzestan province.
Gharibabadi condemned the claimed strike, calling it “a dangerous assault” on Iran’s civilian nuclear infrastructure. “The US attack on the under-construction Darkhovin nuclear power plant constitutes a dangerous assault on Iran’s peaceful infrastructure and places full responsibility for the consequences of escalating insecurity and instability on the United States,” he said. “While strongly condemning this act of aggression, Iran will take appropriate measures to defend its national interests and security,” he added.
Earlier AEOI said a number of projectiles hit the site of the Darkhoin NPP “one of the symbols of dignity and scientific self-sufficiency of the Iranian nation”. The AEOI statement said: “This terrorist and unjustifiable act, which was carried out with the aim of preventing the path of progress and independence of Islamic Iran, is not only a gross violation of international laws and national sovereignty … but also a direct attack on the achievements of young Iranian experts and scientists using local knowledge and internal expertise to implement a national project.”
AEOI added: “This site is fully under the supervision and safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) under the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement between Iran and the Agency, and its activity is peaceful and legal.” Iran expects from the IAEA “not silence and inaction” but condemnation of the strikes “that further weaken the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)” and undermine nuclear safeguards and the statute of the IAEA. The statement stressed that the US action would strengthen the determination of Iran’s nuclear industry to continue with its development and progress.
The IAEA said on a post on X that it “is looking into reports of an overnight attack on the construction site of a planned nuclear power plant in Darkhovin”, adding that “The facility is in the very early stages of construction and contained no nuclear material when last visited by the IAEA.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova voiced serious concern over the incident, calling on the IAEA to formally assess the strike and warning that targeting such installations damages the international legal architecture safeguarding civilian infrastructure.
The Darkhovin NPP is a 300 MWe indigenous 300-360 MWe pressurised light-water reactor designed to operate using uranium oxide enriched to approximately 4%. The development is projected to cost roughly $2bn. Groundbreaking and site excavation began in December 2022, with an estimated completion date set for 2030.
The site has historically been a focal point of foreign contract cancellations due to shifting geopolitical climates. Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Shah signed a contract with French company Framatome to build two 910 MWe reactors at the site. France withdrew after the revolution, later using the pre-fabricated components to build its own Gravelines NPP.
In 1992, Iran signed a deal with China to build two 300 MWe reactors at Darkhovin. China ultimately pulled out of the agreement under intense diplomatic pressure from the US. The AEOI then chose to pursue the project indigenously using domestic engineering firms and equipment manufacturers.
Darkhovin has long been the object of international legal friction. Iran does not have a facility-specific safeguards agreement for the Darkhovin plant. The site is covered under Iran’s blanket Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) signed with the IAEA in 1974. As a signatory to the NPT, all of Iran’s declared nuclear installations automatically fall under this framework.
However, in 1992, the IAEA Board of Governors tightened the rules adopting the Modified Code 3.1 legally requiring states to submit design plans as soon as a decision is made to construct or authorise construction of a new facility. Iran complied with this until 2007, when the UN tightened economic sanctions on Iran for its uranium enrichment activities. In response, Iran unilaterally suspended its compliance with modified Code 3.1 reverting to its previous version whereby there was no need to notify the IAEA of new plants such as Darkhovin until nuclear material was physically introduced.
After signing the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran reinstate compliance with the Modified Code 3.1 but suspended it again in 2019 after the US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018. Iran has continued to refuse to provide the early design modifications and structural notifications for Darkhovin, which would be required under Modified Code 3.1.
In March 2023, AEOI Head Mohammad Eslami said Iran planned 2,000 MWe of nuclear capacity in Khuzestan province. The Karun NPP in Darkhovin would generate 300 MWe in the preliminary phase and other phases will follow. In February 2024, Eslami said the first phase of construction at Darkhovin had been completed.
In a long analysis, Model Diplomat looked at the legal ramifications of the US strike on Darkhovin, noting that Gharibabadi’s condemnation “was not merely rhetorical but deliberately structured to build a legal case”.
The report said the Darkhovin strike matters precisely because the target was empty. “It demonstrates that nine nights into the renewed US bombing campaign, the threshold for what constitutes an acceptable military target has drifted into territory that explicitly contradicts binding IAEA General Conference resolutions, and that this drift is being watched closely in Vienna, where the IAEA Board of Governors will soon have to decide whether the international community still has a meaningful prohibition on attacking nuclear installations devoted to peaceful purposes.”
IAEA General Conference Resolution GC(34)/RES/533, adopted in 1990, which condemns “all armed attacks against nuclear installations devoted to peaceful purposes whether under construction or in operation.” The resolution, published by the IAEA, explicitly recognises that such attacks “could cause grave radiological consequences” and would “violate the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law”.
According to Model Diplomat, the historical parallel is Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor – also a facility under construction, also justified on preventive grounds, and also widely condemned. The UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 487 condemning the Osirak attack. The IAEA General Conference suspended Israel’s technical cooperation privileges. “The Darkhovin strike raises the same question Osirak did 45 years ago: does striking an empty nuclear construction site count as a military operation or a political one?”
The report describes Gharibabadi as “The Lawyer in the Room”. He is Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, the official responsible for constructing Iran’s legal arguments at the IAEA, the UN, and the International Court of Justice. “This is the same Gharibabadi who, in previous years, repeatedly warned that Iran could withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the international community failed to protect its rights under the agreement…. His appearance at the centre of Iran’s response suggests Tehran views the Darkhovin strike not as one more data point in a nine-night bombing campaign, but as a distinct legal escalation that requires a distinct legal response.”
The subtext is: “Iran is building a dossier. Every attack on a declared, safeguarded nuclear facility – even one under construction – is being documented for potential use in international proceedings. The legal track runs parallel to the military escalation, and Gharibabadi is the person managing it.
The IAEA Board of Governors, which met in an extraordinary session in June to discuss the attack on the UAE’s Barakah NPP, now faces a pattern of strikes on declared, safeguarded facilities at both Bushehr, and now Darkhovin. “A formal Board discussion or resolution on the Iran strikes would put the United States’ allies in an uncomfortable position, forcing them to choose between condemning attacks on nuclear infrastructure and maintaining solidarity with Washington.”
Gharibabadi’s legal track also points toward potential Iranian action at the UN Security Council or the International Court of Justice. “The IAEA’s confirmation that Darkhovin contained no nuclear material and was therefore a purely civilian construction project strengthens any Iranian legal claim that the strike violated international law.”
