The UN nuclear watchdog chief has said Iran could produce enriched uranium “in a matter of months”, in an interview in which he also contradicted Donald Trump’s assertion that US strikes had “completely and totally obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear facilities.
Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the US broadcaster CBS News that the strikes on three Iranian sites had clearly caused severe damage but “not total” damage.
He said: “Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.
“They [Iran] 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 … Iran has the capacities there: industrial and technological capacities.”
His view was echoed in a preliminary US intelligence assessment that found that the bombings set back Iran’s nuclear programme by just a matter of months. Speaking to Reuters, one source estimated that the programme could be restarted in one to two months.
Israel launched a widespread attack on Iran on 13 June, targeting the country’s nuclear facilities, as well as military commanders and scientists, among others. Israel said its actions were aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons – an ambition Tehran has consistently denied. The US subsequently joined the attack, bombing three key facilities.
In recent days, questions have swirled as to the extent of the damage done to Iran’s nuclear programme and whether it had been able to relocate some or all of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, estimated to be about 408kg, before the attacks.
“We don’t know where this material could be,” Grossi told CBS. “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.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said the extent of the damage to the nuclear sites is “serious”, but the exact details remain unknown.
Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Trump said he did not think the stockpile had been relocated. “It’s a very hard thing to do, plus we didn’t give much notice,” said the US president, according to excerpts of the interview. “They didn’t move anything.”
Grossi’s remarks will be used by European diplomats to argue with Trump that a diplomatic agreement is needed to settle the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.
IAEA inspectors have been banned from Iran until the country’s Supreme National Security Council says it has assurances its nuclear facilities will not be attacked again, a precondition that takes Iran very close to leaving the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
The IAEA ban has been accompanied by personal attacks on Grossi. In the lead-up to the Israeli attack, the Iranian government had sought to discredit the IAEA amid fury it had produced a report setting out specifics of Iranian non-cooperation with IAEA inspectors.
Iran feels that report was used, or published, as a pretext for Israel’s attack, and said Grossi should have been clearer that his inspectors had not found any evidence of a nuclear weapons programme.
After the attacks, Grossi told Al Jazeera: “We did not find elements in Iran to indicate that there are active systematic plans to build nuclear weapons. To pretend in any way that the report was a green light or an enabler of an attack is absolutely absurd.”
Iran restricts media access, making it hard to assess the toll of the Israeli assault.
On Sunday, however, Iran’s judiciary said at least 71 people had been killed in Israel’s earlier attack on Tehran’s Evin prison, a notorious facility that has long housed political prisoners and dissidents, among others. Those killed included staff, soldiers, prisoners and visiting family members, according to the judiciary spokesperson.
Iran’s government also said on Sunday it was not convinced that Israel would continue to abide by the terms of the ceasefire. Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, Abdolrahim Mousavi, was quoted by state television as saying: “We have serious doubts over the enemy’s compliance with its commitments including the ceasefire. We are ready to respond with force.”
No final decision has yet been made about whether Iran will attend further talks next week in which the US would offer some sanctions relief in return for Iran agreeing to abandon domestic enrichment of uranium, a red line which Tehran has been unwilling to abandon after five rounds of talks.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, was absent from Saturday’s well-attended funerals of Revolutionary Guards commanders in Tehran and has not been seen in public since the attacks. However, in a show of solidarity, Ali Shamkhani, one of the senior advisers to Khamenei, attended the funerals. Carrying a stick, it was his first public appearance since he survived the bombing by Israel of his home in Tehran on the first night of the 12-day war.
He revealed he had spent three hours buried under the rubble of his house. Breathing with the help of an oxygen ventilator for his lungs, he said initially he thought the destruction had been wrought by an earthquake until the sound of a passing car made him realise it was an attack. He said: “My entire room collapsed on me with tons of rubble. The Zionists know why they targeted me, and so do I. I can’t reveal the reason, but I made their lives miserable.”
Israel has tried for years to encourage Iranians to overthrow the regime, but has so far failed.
Shamkani said: “The enemies thought with a single act they could set the stage for unrest in Iran.”
