The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that his teams briefly halted inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities this week amid regional tensions between Israel and Iran.
“What I can tell you is that our inspectors in Iran were informed by the Iranian government yesterday that all the nuclear facilities that we are inspecting every day would remain closed on security considerations,” Rafael Mariano Grossi told reporters at the United Nations in New York.
He said the facilities were to reopen Monday for inspections, but he decided to wait an extra day — planning to resume work on Tuesday — to be sure the situation is “completely calm” before sending his teams back.
“This has not had an impact on our inspection activity, but we always call for extreme restraint,” he added.
Iran launched an attack Sunday toward Israel with over 300 drones and ballistic and cruise missiles. The massive strike caused only modest damage in Israel and no deaths. Tehran said it was in retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike on its embassy in Syria earlier this month that killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers, including two senior commanders.
With Israel considering whether to launch a counterattack, and its concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions widely known, some analysts have questioned whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might target nuclear-related sites in Iran.
On Sunday, Israel’s U.N. envoy told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss Iran’s strike that Tehran would soon have nuclear weapons capabilities.
“Iran’s breakout time to produce an arsenal of nuclear weapons is now weeks — mere weeks,” Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan said.
Grossi told reporters that while Iran has a stockpile of enriched uranium at “very, very high levels,” that does not automatically mean they have a nuclear weapon.
“As far as the agency is concerned, we don’t have any information or indication that there is a nuclear weapons program in Iran,” Grossi said. “At the same time, while we say this, which we need to say, we are telling our Iranian counterparts that this important accumulation of nuclear material, at levels that are very, very close — technically identical almost to weapons grade level — of course is not irrelevant and raises questions in the international community.”
In its quarterly report in February, the IAEA said based on information provided by Iran, it had an estimated total enriched uranium stockpile of 5,525.5 kilograms (about 12,182 pounds), an increase of 1,038.7 kilograms (2,289 pounds) since the previous quarterly report in November 2023. Of that, an estimated 121.5 kilograms (267.8 pounds) of uranium is enriched up to 60% purity, which is one step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for purely peaceful civilian purposes.
Grossi said outstanding questions are why it is so important that the Iranian government fully cooperate with the IAEA.
Iran has barred several experienced inspectors from monitoring its nuclear program. It has also unilaterally stopped implementing the Joint Statement agreed with the IAEA in March 2023, and there are outstanding safeguards issues under the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement that need to be resolved for the IAEA to provide assurances that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.
Grossi said he hopes to visit Tehran soon to put the situation back on track.
Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press.
