Iran site targeted by Israel not 'nuclear facility', says IAEA chief

VIENNA — UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said Wednesday that the agency did not consider Iran's Parchin site "a nuclear facility" after Israel claimed it hit Tehran's nuclear programme in a strike last month.

"We don't have any information that would confirm [the] presence of nuclear material" in Parchin, even though the site "could have been involved in the past in some activities," Grossi told reporters in Vienna.

"But as far as the IAEA is concerned, we do not see this as a nuclear facility," he said.

"I leave it to those military decision makers to judge and characterise places," he added.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel's late October attack on Iran damaged "a component" of the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme.

"It has been published that a certain component of their nuclear programme was hit in this attack," Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament.

"The programme itself and its ability to operate here have not yet been thwarted," he added.

US news portal Axios reported that the attack on Iran had "destroyed an active top secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin", quoting unidentified US and Israeli officials.

The site is some 50 kilometres southeast of Tehran. 

Israel has repeatedly accused Iran of wanting to acquire an atomic bomb, a claim Tehran has denied.