Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Dec 6 called for Japan to share its expertise with past atomic disasters and help Iran secure facilities severely damaged by recent Israeli and US strikes.

In an exclusive interview with Kyodo News, Mr Araghchi said Iran’s nuclear sites were “bombarded, destroyed and heavily damaged” during the attacks that he said were “perhaps the biggest violation of international law” ever committed against a safeguarded nuclear facility under the monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Touching on the prospects for stalled nuclear negotiations with the United States, Mr Araghchi also said Iran is open to diplomacy, but only under conditions that guarantee a “fair and balanced” outcome.

“It depends on the United States,” he said.

The nuclear talks have hit an impasse as the US under President Donald Trump wants Iran to completely halt its uranium enrichment, a demand that Tehran has rejected.

“I have no doubt that Japan has good knowledge on how to improve the safety of nuclear facilities, and that knowledge can be shared with Iran,” he said, citing extensive work on environmental, medical and technical safety measures in the aftermath of nuclear crises.

Japan experienced the 1945 US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in 2011.

Mr Araghchi emphasised that potential cooperation would pertain to technical safety, not to inspections, which is an IAEA mandate.

“On the technical aspects of these safety challenges, cooperation with Japan can be very useful.”

He said Iran faces a complex mix of safety and security threats that it has never seen before, citing structural damage and potential radiation leaks after the June strikes.

As there is “no precedent of a peaceful nuclear facility being bombarded”, the foreign chief said, the strikes exposed a critic...