Iran could resume uranium enrichment in ‘matter of months,’ IAEA chief says

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi says Iran likely will be able to begin to produce enriched uranium “in a matter of months,” despite damage to several nuclear facilities from US and Israeli attacks, CBS News says.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says the extent of the damage to the nuclear sites is “serious,” but that the details are unknown, while US President Donald Trump insists Iran’s nuclear program has been set back “decades.”

But Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says “some is still standing.”

“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,” Grossi said Friday, according to a transcript of the interview released Saturday.

Another key question is whether Iran was able to relocate some or all of its estimated 408.6-kilo (900-pound) stockpile of highly enriched uranium before the attacks.

The uranium in question is enriched to 60 percent — above levels for civilian usage but below weapons grade. That material, if further refined, would theoretically be sufficient to produce more than nine nuclear bombs.

Grossi admitted to CBS: “We don’t know where this material could be.”

“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,” he says in the interview.

For now, Iranian lawmakers voted to suspend cooperation with the IAEA and Tehran rejected Grossi’s request for a visit to the damaged sites, especially Fordo, the main uranium enrichment facility, which was struck by the US last Sunday.

“We need to be in a position to ascertain, to confirm what is there, and where is it and what happened,” Grossi said.