{"id":4565,"date":"2025-06-30T15:05:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T15:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/?p=4565"},"modified":"2025-06-30T15:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T15:30:09","slug":"we-dont-know-where-irans-enriched-uranium-is-iaea-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/30\/we-dont-know-where-irans-enriched-uranium-is-iaea-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We don\u2019t know\u2019 where Iran\u2019s enriched uranium is \u2013 IAEA chief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rafael Grossi has said over 400kg of nuclear material may have been moved before Israeli-US strikes<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than 400 kilograms of enriched uranium remains unaccounted for in Iran following Israeli and US airstrikes on key nuclear facilities, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking to CBS in an interview aired on Sunday, Grossi admitted that \u201cwe don\u2019t know where this material could be, or if part of it could have been under the attack during those 12 days.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grossi said Iran\u2019s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% purity \u2013 which is shy of the 90% required to build a nuclear weapon \u2013 has effectively gone missing since Israel and the US launched strikes on the country. Some of it could have been destroyed and some could have been moved, he noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The uranium stockpile in question has an estimated volume of roughly 400kg, a quantity the IAEA has assessed as theoretically sufficient to produce more than nine nuclear bombs if enriched to 90%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Israel launched an attack on Iran on June 13, claiming it was on the brink of building a nuclear weapon \u2013 something which had been denied by the IAEA and US intelligence. On June 22, the US joined the Israeli campaign by striking Iran\u2019s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities. Tehran vehemently denied the allegations and retaliated to the attacks.<\/p>\n

Last week, the conflict ended in a US-brokered ceasefire, which has so far been upheld.<\/p>\n

Grossi has claimed that despite the Israeli-US bombing campaign and significant damage to Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities, Tehran may still be capable of restarting its uranium enrichment operations \u201cin a matter of months.\u201d<\/em> He noted that the knowledge possessed by Iran cannot be \u201cdisinvented.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"FILE
Trump mulling investment in Iran\u2019s nuclear program \u2013 CNN<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He also stated that Iranian officials had informed the IAEA on June 13 that protective measures were being taken to safeguard nuclear assets. A Western diplomat told Reuters that most of the material at Fordow appeared to have been moved \u201cdays in advance of the attacks,\u201d<\/em> citing satellite images showing trucks outside the site.<\/p>\n

Former IAEA inspector Olli Heinonen said the process of confirming the uranium\u2019s fate will likely be lengthy and arduous, involving forensics and environmental sampling. He warned that some of the material may be \u201cinaccessible, distributed under the rubble or lost during the bombing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Iran has suspended cooperation with the IAEA and rejected Grossi\u2019s request to inspect the damaged sites, including Fordow. The Iranian parliament voted last week to end the country\u2019s compliance with routine monitoring under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, citing the agency\u2019s failure to prevent \u201cunlawful\u201d<\/em> military action.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump has denied that Iran was able to relocate any uranium before the strikes, suggesting it was \u201cvery dangerous\u201d<\/em> and \u201cvery hard\u201d<\/em> to do. He also claimed that the Iranians didn\u2019t move anything because they were trying to save themselves from the attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rafael Grossi has said over 400kg of nuclear material may have been moved before Israeli-US strikes More than 400 kilograms of enriched uranium remains unaccounted for in Iran following Israeli and US airstrikes on key nuclear facilities, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has said.\u00a0 Speaking to CBS in an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4565"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4568,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4565\/revisions\/4568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}