Iran: Emergency Meeting
This afternoon (13 June), the Security Council will hold an emergency open briefing followed by closed consultations on the attack that Israel launched against Iran overnight. The meeting, which will be held under the “Threats to international peace and security” agenda item, was requested by Iran in a letter that its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, sent to the Security Council earlier today. China and Russia supported the meeting request. The anticipated briefers are Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. Iran and Israel are expected to participate in the briefing under rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure.
Israel said that its operation struck over 100 targets in Iran, including nuclear facilities, missile factories, and air defence systems. It also killed at least 20 senior military commanders, including Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, and Gen. Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as several nuclear scientists. The attack was conducted by fighter jets, drones, and Israeli special forces operating inside Iranian territory. At the time of writing, the operation was reportedly ongoing and expected to continue in phases.
The Natanz nuclear enrichment facility was among the targets hit. The site is Iran’s largest enrichment facility and has produced the majority of the country’s highly enriched uranium. The IDF said that it had damaged the underground area of the site, which contains the centrifuges used for enrichment. In a statement today, Grossi said that the IAEA was in contact with Iranian authorities “to ascertain the status of relevant nuclear facilities and to assess any wider impacts on nuclear safety and security”. The IAEA later reported that radiation levels outside the Natanz facility “remained unchanged”.
In a video address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the attack as a “targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat” to Israel. He cited Iran’s production of highly enriched uranium and steps that the country has reportedly taken to weaponise the nuclear material “in a very short time”, which he described “as a clear and present danger to Israel’s survival”. Referring to bilateral negotiations between Iran and the US on a new agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear activities, he said that Iran has refused to give up its enrichment programme and was “buying time”, which forced Israel to act. Netanyahu opposed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—which limited Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for UN sanctions relief—and supported the decision of US President Donald Trump during his first term to withdraw the US from the agreement.
In his letter to the Security Council, Araghchi condemned Israel’s military assault, describing it as an “unlawful act of aggression” and noting that the strike on the Natanz site—which is under IAEA safeguards and monitoring—risked “a radiological disaster”. He characterised the attack as an act of “state terrorism” that threatens international peace and security as well as a grave violation of the UN Charter, international humanitarian law, and the IAEA’s non-proliferation regime. Citing Iran’s right to self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, Araghchi said that Iran will “respond decisively and proportionately” to the attack and urged the Security Council to take urgent measures to hold Israel accountable. Hours after the Israeli strikes, Iran conducted the apparent first phase of its retaliation by launching over 100 drones toward Israel. The majority were intercepted by Israeli air defence systems.
While Trump had previously opposed a plan proposed by Netanyahu to strike Iranian nuclear facilities in a joint Israeli-US operation—opting instead to pursue bilateral negotiations with Iran on a diplomatic solution—he appeared to welcome Israel’s attack. In separate posts on social media, Trump criticised Iran for rejecting US proposals for a new nuclear agreement and urged the country to “make a deal” to avoid further military action, saying that it now has a “second chance”. He later suggested to reporters that the attack may pressure Iran to “negotiate seriously”. Iran and the US had been scheduled to hold a sixth round of nuclear negotiations on Sunday (15 June) in Oman, but it was unclear if the talks would still take place at the time of writing.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described Israel’s operation as a “unilateral action” that the US was not involved in, stressing that the country’s top priority was to protect American forces in the region and warning Iran against targeting US interests or personnel. While Iran has previously said that it would hold the US accountable for any Israeli attack, Araghchi did not mention the US in his letter to the Security Council. Analysts suggest that Iran may attempt to formulate a response that restores deterrence without drawing the US into a broader conflict.
In a statement, Secretary-General António Guterres condemned “any military escalation in the Middle East” and said that he was particularly concerned by Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear installations. He recalled the obligation of UN member states to act in accordance with the UN Charter and international law and urged both sides to show maximum restraint, “avoiding at all costs a descent into deeper conflict, a situation that the region can hardly afford”. Among other responses from the international community, most regional countries also condemned the attacks, while others—such as China, France, Germany, Russia, and UK—similarly expressed concern about the escalation and echoed Guterres’ call for restraint.
The recent attack marks a significant escalation in the ongoing crisis in the Middle East since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Following the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, several fronts opened between Israel and the constellation of armed groups comprising Iran’s “axis of resistance” in the region, including in Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria. In April 2024, Iran and Israel engaged in direct military confrontation for the first time when Iran launched drone and missile strikes against Israel in response to the latter’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus. Subsequently, following Israel’s assassinations of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024 and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in September 2024, Iran conducted another attack against Israel in October 2024, launching approximately 200 ballistic missiles against the country, most of which were intercepted by Israeli and US air defence systems. Israel retaliated with additional airstrikes against Iran later that month.
Yesterday’s attack came shortly after the IAEA Board of Governors (BoG) adopted a resolution—put forward by France, Germany, the UK, and the US—declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in nearly 20 years. The resolution referred to the findings of a BoG-mandated “comprehensive report” that the IAEA submitted to member states in late May, detailing Iran’s activities at undeclared nuclear sites in the country and its lack of cooperation with the Agency’s investigation into those activities. The resolution said that the report “gives rise to questions that are within the competence of the United Nations Security Council”, suggesting that the BoG may refer the matter to the Security Council, which could pave the way for triggering the JCPOA’s “snapback” mechanism to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran that were in place before that agreement. (For more information, see the brief on Iran in our June 2025 Monthly Forecast.)
