Iran could start making enriched uranium within months, IAEA head warns

Nuclear sites struck by US sustained serious damage but may not have sustained knock-out blow, Rafael Grossi says

It could only be a matter of months until Iran starts producing enriched uranium again, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog has warned.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told CBS News that the three Iranian nuclear sites the US bombed on June 21 had sustained a “very serious level of damage”.

But he said Iran could quickly resume uranium-enrichment capabilities. “They 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,” he said in an interview recorded on Friday and broadcast on Sunday. “Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.”

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US President Donald Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth have repeatedly claimed the nuclear sites were “obliterated” and have reacted with fury when challenged on this assessment. The US bombed the three nuclear sites – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan – last weekend, joining Israel's air war against Iran, which lasted 12 days.

Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only. Western powers stress that Iran's nuclear advances provide it with an irreversible knowledge gain, suggesting that while losing experts or facilities may slow progress, the advances are permanent.

“Iran is a very sophisticated country in terms of nuclear technology,” Mr Grossi told CBS. “So you cannot disinvent this. You cannot undo the knowledge that you have or the capacities that you have.”

Mr Grossi said that Iran might have moved some of its highly enriched uranium in the run-up to the US attacks.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi. Reuters