Rafael Grossi has reported no additional damage at Iran’s Natanz and Fordow nuclear sites following Israeli military strikes.
The smallest of Iran’s three enrichment plants, an above-ground pilot plant at the expansive Natanz nuclear complex, had been destroyed, according to earlier reports from Grossi and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Although there was no indication of a physical assault on the larger underground enrichment facility at Natanz, the uranium-enriching centrifuges there might have been harmed by the destruction of its power supply. The Fordow plant, which was buried in a mountain, showed no signs of damage.
In a statement to an extraordinary meeting of his agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors, Grossi stated, “Since the Friday attack that destroyed the above-ground portion of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, there has been no further damage at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant site.”
He explained the damage at the Isfahan nuclear facilities, where Israeli strikes over the weekend damaged four buildings, including the uranium conversion facility that converts “yellowcake” uranium into uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for centrifuges, so it can be enriched.
“The central chemical laboratory, a uranium conversion plant, the Tehran reactor fuel manufacturing plant, and the UF4 (uranium tetrafluoride) to EU metal processing facility, which was under construction, were among the four buildings at the Esfahan nuclear site that were damaged in Friday’s attack,” he said.
“The International Atomic Energy Agency has been and will continue to be active in Iran. As mandated by Iran’s NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) safeguards obligations, safeguards inspections will resume in Iran as soon as safety conditions permit,” he continued.
