ABU DHABI — The International Atomic Energy Agency is offering the United Arab Emirates technical as well as moral support, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said on Tuesday after a visit to the site of a nuclear power plant that came under a “carefully targeted” drone attack last month.

Grossi said Emirati authorities had reacted very quickly to the attack at the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant by shutting down a reactor because of the loss of external power.

The $20 billion Barakah nuclear power plant is the only nuclear power plant in the Arab world and can provide a quarter of the energy needs of the UAE. It came under a drone attack last month that the Gulf country said was launched from Iraq.

The drone that penetrated the UAE’s defenses hit an electric generator outside the inner perimeter of the plant, according to Emirati officials. It was one of three drones that were targeting the plant and only two were intercepted, according to the UAE’s defense ministry.

The IAEA chief said a number of activities would take place to complete repairs at the plant. He told Reuters that it could be a “matter of weeks” for the repairs to be completed, including a need for physical repair and also maintenance to an external power line. “The repairs are under way already,” he said.

“From what we saw this was a very carefully targeted operation,” Grossi told journalists in Abu Dhabi after visiting the plant. “This means that whoever was behind this knew exactly what they were doing. This is of extreme gravity.”

At the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in the UAE ????????, where a drone strike on 17 May highlighted once again why nuclear facilities must never be targeted and why such attacks are completely unacceptable. Thanks to the professionalism and swift action of the @ENEC_UAE and @FANRUAE,… pic.twitter.com/ufyWSylxWI Advertisement if(typeof rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner != "function" || !rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner("#Article_Incontent1")){ window.tude = window.tude || { cmd: [] }; tude.cmd.push(function() { if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf("rgbmedia-app") > -1){........

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