Ex-UN atomic agency chief: Iran could produce nuclear bomb in 6-8 months

The former deputy head of the UN’s atomic watchdog says that Iran is currently capable of producing a nuclear bomb in six to eight months.

In an interview with Army Radio, Olli Heinonen says that Israel and the Gulf states “have a reason to worry.”

Heinonen says that despite claims to the contrary by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, which he left in 2010, Tehran is not adhering to the 2005 nuclear deal. “Iran is actually weaponizing uranium enrichment without making a weapon,” he claims.

Heinonen currently serves as a fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative Washington think tank that has been highly critical of the Iran deal that was finalized by former US president Barack Obama.

“My personal, perhaps back of envelope calculation is [that perhaps in] half a year, seven-eight months maximum [they will be able to reach a nuclear bomb] if they put in their maximum effort,” Heinonen tells Army Radio in a rare interview to Israeli press while he was in the country for a conference hosted by the ISDEF Defense & HLS Expo.