International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi says much of Iran‘s highly enriched uranium might have survived Israeli and US attacks, possibly relocated by Tehran after initial strikes.
Although US forces bombed Iran’s underground nuclear facilities over the weekend and Israel repeatedly hit Iranian nuclear facilities during its 12-day war with Tehran, it is unclear how much damage was done to Iran’s enriched uranium stocks.
Earlier this week, Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, stated that Iran had notified the IAEA on June 13, the day of the Israeli strikes, that it would take “special measures” to safeguard its nuclear materials and equipment.
Grossi said at a press conference with Austrian government officials on Wednesday, “They did not get into details as to what that meant, but clearly that was the implicit meaning of that, so we can imagine that this material is there.”
“Therefore, we need to send (IAEA inspectors) back to Iran’s nuclear facilities to confirm, evaluate, and assess the entire situation.”
Although Iran’s parliament approved measures on Wednesday to suspend IAEA inspections, he stated that his top priority was to ensure that they resumed.
Since the bombing started, no IAEA inspections had taken place.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi stated, “A successful diplomatic agreement to finally resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear activities depends on resuming cooperation with the IAEA.”
According to Grossi, “I’ve written to Foreign Minister [Abbas] Araghchi stressing the importance of us working together and proposing to meet soon.”
The IAEA must ascertain the amount of uranium that is still in Iran’s stock that has been enriched to a level of up to 60% purity, which is nearly equal to the 90% weapons grade.
