IAEA chief says no further damage to Iranian nuclear sites since Friday

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi says there is no sign of further damage at the Natanz or Fordo enrichment sites after Israel launched attacks aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear program.

Grossi and the International Atomic Energy Agency he heads had previously reported that the smallest of Iran’s three enrichment plants, an aboveground pilot plant at the sprawling Natanz nuclear complex, had been destroyed.

While there was no sign of a physical attack on the bigger underground enrichment plant at Natanz, its power supply was destroyed, which may have damaged the uranium-enriching centrifuges there. No damage was seen at the Fordo plant dug into a mountain.

“There has been no additional damage at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant site since the Friday attack, which destroyed the above-ground part of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant,” Grossi says in a statement to an exceptional meeting of his agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors.

He also details four buildings at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site that were hit on Friday.

“The central chemical laboratory, a uranium conversion plant, the Tehran reactor fuel manufacturing plant, and the UF4 (uranium tetrafluoride) to EU metal processing facility, which was under construction,” he says.

“The agency is and will remain present in Iran. Safeguards inspections in Iran will continue as soon as safety conditions allow, as is required under Iran’s [Non-Proliferation Treaty] safeguards obligations,” he adds.