Image source, EPA
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- Author, Stuart Lau
- Author's title, BBC News
Iran has the capacity to start enriching Uranium again – for a possible bomb – in “matter of months,” said the UN Nuclear Surveillance Chief.
Rafael Grossi, general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (OIEA), said that US attacks against three Iranian facilities last weekend had caused serious but “not total” damage, contradicting Donald Trump's statement that Iranian nuclear facilities had been “completely annihilated.”
“Frankly speaking, it cannot be said that everything has disappeared and that there is nothing left,” Grossi said on Saturday.
Israel attacked nuclear and military facilities in Iran on June 13, claiming that Iran was close to building a nuclear weapon. The United States subsequently joined the attacks, launching bombs on the three Iranian nuclear facilities: Fordo, Natanz and Isfahán.
Since then, the real scope of the damage is not clear.
On Saturday, Grossi declared CBS News, a half American associated with the BBC, which Tehran could have “in a matter of months … a few centrifugers turning and producing enriched uranium.”
He added that Iran still had the “industrial and technological abilities … so if they wish, they can start doing it again.”
The OIEA is not the first organism that suggests that Iran's nuclear abilities could still continue. Earlier this week, an intelligence evaluation of the Pentagon concluded that US attacks only delayed the program for a few months.
Trump replied furious declaring that Iranian nuclear facilities had been “completely destroyed” and accused the media of “an attempt to degrade one of the most successful military attacks in history.”
For now, Iran and Israel have agreed to stop the fire.
But Trump has said that he would consider “undoubtedly” bombing will go again if intelligence services discovered that he can enrich uranium to worrying levels.
Iran, meanwhile, has sent contradictory messages about the magnitude of the damages caused.
In a speech pronounced on Thursday, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatolá Ali Jamenei, said the attacks had not achieved significant. However, its Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that “excessive and serious” damage had occurred.
Image source, Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images
Iran's relationship with the OIEA, already tense, became even more questioned on Wednesday, when his Parliament decided to suspend cooperation with the atomic surveillance agency, accusing the OIEA of putting the side of Israel and the United States on the side of Israel and the United States.
Both countries attacked Iran after the UN agency declared last month that Teh will breach their non -proliferation obligations for the first time in 20 years.
Iran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful and only for civil use.
Despite the Iranian refusal to collaborate with his organization, Grossi said he hoped to continue negotiating with Tehran.
“I have to sit with Iran and study it, because after all, this matter, after military attacks, will have to have a lasting solution, which can only be diplomatic,” he said.
By virtue of a 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers, Iran could not enrich Uranium above 3.67% purity – the level required for the fuel of commercial nuclear power plants – and could not carry out any enrichment in its fordo plant for 15 years.
However, Trump withdrew from the agreement during his first term in 2018, claiming that he was doing too little to stop the path to the manufacture of a bomb, and restored US sanctions.
Iran took reprisals breaking more and more restrictions, particularly those related to enrichment. He resumed enrichment in Fordo in 2021 and had accumulated enough 60% enriched uranium to potentially manufacture nine nuclear bombs, according to OIEA.
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