No danger to residents near nuclear sites: Iran
- Last updated: June 22, 2025 | 21:35
The Iranian government has confirmed that there is no danger to residents of areas near the nuclear facilities in Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow following the US airstrikes that occurred at dawn on Sunday.
Tasnim News Agency quoted Fatemeh Mohajerani, the Iranian government spokesperson, as saying in statements on that the Israeli attacks - in general - have so far resulted in the deaths of 55 women and children, injuries to 209 others, as well as damage to six ambulance buildings and the killing or injury of 18 medical personnel.
Over 200 places in the Iranian capital have been hit in Israeli strikes since the start of the war ten days ago, Tehran's provincial governor said on Sunday.
"More than 200 locations have been attacked by the usurping Zionist regime," governor Mohammad Sadegh Motamedian told state TV. He said over 120 residential housing units "have been fully destroyed" while 500 others suffered "damages."
In adviser to Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that the country still had its stockpile of enriched uranium despite attacks by the United States on key nuclear sites. "Even if nuclear sites are destroyed, game isn't over, enriched materials, indigenous knowledge, political will remain," said Ali Shamkhani in a post on X. He added that the "political and operational initiative is now with the side that plays smart, avoids blind strikes. Surprises will continue!"
The leaders of two prominent Iranian opposition factions on Sunday urged supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to step down and spare more bloodshed, in the wake of unprecedented American attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah ousted by the 1979 Islamic revolution, and Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the People's Mujahedin (MEK), which is outlawed in Iran, said in separate statements that Khamenei must quit after over a week of war between Iran and Israel.
The whereabouts of Khamenei, who has led the country since 1989, are unclear after Israel refused to rule out killing him.
Opposition groups claim he is deep underground in a bunker and incommunicado except with a group of his closest aides.
"Now Khamenei must go," said Rajavi, saying that Khamenei's "unpatriotic project" had now "all gone up in smoke".
"No to appeasement, no to war and yes to regime change -- changing the religious dictatorship by the Iranian people and the Iranian resistance," she said.
Pahlavi, who is the figurehead for supporters of the ousted Iranian monarchy, said "the only sure way to achieve peace is for this regime to now end".
"As Khamenei considers how to respond from his underground bunker, I say to him: For the sake of the Iranian people, respond by stepping down," he said.
WAM / Agencies