Rafael Grossi has said over 400kg of nuclear material may have been moved before Israeli-US strikes
More than 400 kilograms of enriched uranium remains unaccounted for in Iran following Israeli and US airstrikes on key nuclear facilities, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has said.
Speaking to CBS in an interview aired on Sunday, Grossi admitted that “we don’t know where this material could be, or if part of it could have been under the attack during those 12 days.”
Grossi said Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% purity – which is shy of the 90% required to build a nuclear weapon – has effectively gone missing since Israel and the US launched strikes on the country. Some of it could have been destroyed and some could have been moved, he noted.
The uranium stockpile in question has an estimated volume of roughly 400kg, a quantity the IAEA has assessed as theoretically sufficient to produce more than nine nuclear bombs if enriched to 90%.
Israel launched an attack on Iran on June 13, claiming it was on the brink of building a nuclear weapon – something which had been denied by the IAEA and US intelligence. On June 22, the US joined the Israeli campaign by striking Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities. Tehran vehemently denied the allegations and retaliated to the attacks.
Last week, the conflict ended in a US-brokered ceasefire, which has so far been upheld.
Grossi has claimed that despite the Israeli-US bombing campaign and significant damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities, Tehran may still be capable of restarting its uranium enrichment operations “in a matter of months.” He noted that the knowledge possessed by Iran cannot be “disinvented.”
He also stated that Iranian officials had informed the IAEA on June 13 that protective measures were being taken to safeguard nuclear assets. A Western diplomat told Reuters that most of the material at Fordow appeared to have been moved “days in advance of the attacks,” citing satellite images showing trucks outside the site.
Former IAEA inspector Olli Heinonen said the process of confirming the uranium’s fate will likely be lengthy and arduous, involving forensics and environmental sampling. He warned that some of the material may be “inaccessible, distributed under the rubble or lost during the bombing.”
Meanwhile, Iran has suspended cooperation with the IAEA and rejected Grossi’s request to inspect the damaged sites, including Fordow. The Iranian parliament voted last week to end the country’s compliance with routine monitoring under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, citing the agency’s failure to prevent “unlawful” military action.
US President Donald Trump has denied that Iran was able to relocate any uranium before the strikes, suggesting it was “very dangerous” and “very hard” to do. He also claimed that the Iranians didn’t move anything because they were trying to save themselves from the attack.
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