IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi warned the IAEA Board of Governors that Iran may be taking a more aggressive approach to the nuclear weapons issue.
Until recent months, Tehran has sought to develop nuclear weapons only clandestinely and mainly regarding uranium enrichment, but at least publicly has said it viewed such weapons as prohibited by Islam, and Israeli intelligence had said it had stayed away from advancing specific weapons group issues.
Grossi said, “Public statements made in Iran regarding its technical capabilities to produce nuclear weapons and possible changes to Iran’s nuclear doctrine only increase my concerns about the correctness and completeness of Iran’s safeguards declarations.”
Iran threatens West over nuclear weapons
In recent months, multiple top Iranian officials have threatened the West that it might publicly decide that nuclear weapons are not prohibited by Islam, and others have said that it has already completed weapons group issues, such as unique nuclear detonation challenges.
In addition, Grossi said that despite his visit in early May to Tehran, which at the time he said could reignite more positive cooperation, that “I deeply regret that Iran has yet to reverse its decision to withdraw the designations for several experienced Agency inspectors,” meaning that the Islamic Republic has still banned many key IAEA inspectors from its soil.
Some of those inspectors caught Iran enriching uranium up to 84% in February 2022, the closest it ever got to the 90% weaponized level.
Grossi did reference that he had met “with Foreign Minister, H.E. the late Mr. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian,” leaving open the possibility that progress was set back by his death in the recent helicopter crash, but also noted that “Vice-President of the Islamic Republic of Iran and President of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), H.E. Mr. Mohammad Eslami,” who is still alive, was also part of the discussions.
Next, the IAEA chief cautioned that “Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium continues to increase, including that enriched up to 60%. The Agency has lost continuity of knowledge in relation to the production and inventory of centrifuges, rotors and bellows, heavy water, and uranium ore concentrate.”
“It has been more than three years since Iran stopped provisionally applying its Additional Protocol, and therefore, it is also over three years since the Agency was able to conduct complementary access in Iran,” he said.
Moreover, he stated, “There has been no progress in resolving the outstanding safeguards issues. Iran has not provided the Agency with technically credible explanations for the presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at Varamin and Turquzabad or informed the Agency of the current location(s) of the nuclear material and/or of contaminated equipment.”