“The Iraqi government expresses its deep concern and condemnation of the targeting of nuclear facilities within the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It affirms that this military escalation poses a serious threat to peace and security in the Middle East and seriously endangers regional stability,” government spokesperson Basem al-Awadi said in a statement.
US President Donald Trump early Sunday announced that the US had carried out strikes targeting Iran’s three primary nuclear sites - Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. He later told Fox News that six “bunker-buster” bombs were used against the Fordow plant, which houses Iran’s most advanced centrifuges, while the other two sites were hit with Tomahawk cruise missiles from submarines.
In the statement, Baghdad stressed that “military solutions cannot be a substitute for dialogue and diplomacy, and that the continuation of these attacks would lead to a dangerous escalation with consequences that would extend beyond the borders of any single state.”
Trump further labeled Washington’s strikes as a “spectacular military success.”
“There will either be peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than what we have witnessed in the past eight days,” he said in a televised address following the attacks, asserting that the strikes were directed at “the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program.”
The strikes came days after Trump said he was giving Tehran two weeks before he would make a decision about getting directly involved in the conflict.
They were also a culmination of days of speculation on whether Washington would join Israel’s attacks against Iran, particularly after Trump cut his trip to Canada for a G7 meeting short and returned to the US to convene a National Security Council meeting on Tuesday.
Israel on June 13 launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and assassinated several senior military commanders, triggering counterstrikes from Tehran. The conflict is now in its second week. The escalation abruptly ended indirect nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington.