Rafael Grossi, head of the UN nuclear watchdog, stated on Saturday that Iran would likely be able to commence producing enriched uranium “in a matter of months,” despite damage sustained by several nuclear facilities during recent US and Israeli attacks. CBS News reported his comments from an interview.
Israel initiated a bombing campaign targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites on June 13, asserting its aim was to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons—an ambition consistently denied by the Islamic Republic. The United States subsequently joined the offensive, bombing three key facilities associated with Tehran’s atomic program.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has acknowledged the “serious” extent of the damage to the nuclear sites, though specific details remain undisclosed. In contrast, US President Donald Trump has insisted that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back “decades.”
However, Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), countered, saying “some is still standing.” According to a transcript of his Friday interview released on Saturday, Grossi elaborated, “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.”
A critical unresolved question is whether Iran managed to relocate any or all of its estimated 408.6-kilogram (900-pound) stockpile of highly enriched uranium before the attacks. This uranium, enriched to 60 percent, is above civilian usage levels but below weapons-grade. If further refined, this quantity could theoretically be sufficient to produce more than nine nuclear bombs.
Grossi admitted to CBS, “We don’t know where this material could be.” He added, “So 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.”
For the time being, Iranian lawmakers have voted to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, and Tehran has rejected Grossi’s request for a visit to the damaged sites, particularly Fordo, the primary uranium enrichment facility. “We need to be in a position to ascertain, to confirm what is there, and where is it and what happened,” Grossi emphasized.
In a separate interview with Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” program, President Trump expressed his belief that the stockpile had not been moved. “It’s a very hard thing to do plus we didn’t give much notice,” he said in excerpts of the interview. “They didn’t move anything.”
On Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated Washington’s support for “the IAEA’s critical verification and monitoring efforts in Iran,” commending Grossi and his agency for their “dedication and professionalism.”
The full Grossi interview is scheduled to air on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday.
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