Iran could begin producing enriched uranium again in “a matter of months,” the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said, as damage caused by U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities was “severe” but not “total.”
Iran clearly has the capacity to rebuild its nuclear facilities, Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, said in an interview with CBS News.
“They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that,” Grossi said in the interview, which was conducted on Friday and is set to be broadcast on Sunday.
Israel attacked Iran’s highly protected nuclear facilities with drones and warplanes in mid-June, aiming to prevent the regime in Tehran from building a nuclear bomb. The U.S. initially sought to stay out of the conflict, but waded into the fighting a week later by bombing key Iranian nuclear sites.
The strikes have triggered counterattacks by Iran on Israeli cities and an American airbase in Qatar, although U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran last week.
Questions remain over whether Iran moved its stockpile of enriched uranium prior to the strikes, and whether centrifuges remain intact at nuclear sites.
Grossi said the IAEA is not present in Iran, and so unable to make any direct evaluations of the damage. But according to available intelligence reports, “it is clear that there has been severe damage, but it’s not total damage,” Grossi said.
Some stockpiles of enriched uranium could have been moved by Iran before the strikes, but the IAEA doesn’t “know where this material could be,” Grossi said.
“Some could have been destroyed as part of the attack, but some could have been moved. So there has to be at some point a clarification. If we don’t get that clarification, this will continue to be hanging, you know, over our heads as a potential problem,” he said, according to a transcript of the CBS interview.
Grossi said it is “clear” that Iran will be able to start building up its nuclear capacities again, and repeatedly emphasized the importance of getting “back to the table” with Iran to find a “long-lasting” and “diplomatic” solution.
“At some point, the IAEA will have to return. Although our job is not to assess damage, but to reestablish the knowledge of the activities that take place there, and the access to the material, which is very, very important,” he said.
Iran has banned the IAEA chief from its nuclear facilities and removed surveillance cameras from them, but Grossi said Iran is still party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which “implies that they have to work with the agency.”
He said that national laws in Iran are not incompatible with the IAEA’s inspection work, and it is “constructive” that Iran is not saying it is invoking internal measures to escape its obligations under the international treaty.
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