Iran could resume uranium enrichment within 'a few months'

Iran has the technical capabilities to resume enriching uranium within "a few months," said the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi in an interview with the American channel CBS.

Nearly a week after American bombings on the nuclear sites of Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan, all agree, even Tehran, that these plants have been considerably damaged, but questions remain about the real effectiveness of these strikes.

For example, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that the Iranian nuclear program had been delayed by "several decades." "There has been significant damage, but not complete. [...] They can have [...], in a few months I would say, centrifuges in action to produce enriched uranium," Grossi said Friday in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday.

Another key issue: the fate of over 400 kg of enriched uranium at 60 percent, which could theoretically be used to make more than nine atomic bombs if the rate were increased to 90 percent. In an interview to be broadcast Sunday on the American channel Fox News, on the program "Sunday Morning Futures," Donald Trump assured that the Iranian uranium stocks had not been moved before the American strikes. "It's a very difficult thing to do and we didn't give any warning" before bombing, he emphasized, according to excerpts from the interview. "They didn't move anything."

But IAEA inspectors have not seen these reserves since June 10, hence the U.N. agency's requests to access the sites and the Iranian stock. However, the Iranian parliament voted in favor of suspending cooperation with the IAEA and the Guardian Council, which examines legislation in Iran, approved the law on Thursday, which must be submitted to the presidency for ratification.

"It's their law, their parliament, but there are legal implications here. An international treaty must, of course, take precedence. You cannot invoke a national law to not comply with an international treaty," Grossi pointed out. "We support the crucial verification and monitoring efforts of the IAEA in Iran," stated U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on X on Saturday. He also called on Iran to "ensure the safety and security of the organization's staff."

Iranian diplomacy blames the U.N. agency for adopting a resolution on June 12 accusing Iran of non-compliance with its nuclear obligations. Tehran also considers that this decision served as an "excuse" for Israel and the United States to attack its nuclear sites. "Who can really believe that this conflict happened because of an IAEA report? There was nothing new in this report [...] it may be easy to blame an international organization or a director general, I don't know, but it's not reasonable," Grossi defended.