“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 in the interview, which was conducted on Friday and is set to be broadcast on Sunday.
Israel attacked Iran’s highly protected nuclear facilities with drones and warplanes in mid-June, aiming to prevent the regime in Tehran from building a nuclear bomb. The U.S. initially sought to stay out of the conflict, but waded into the fighting a week later by bombing key Iranian nuclear sites.
The strikes have triggered counterattacks by Iran on Israeli cities and an American airbase in Qatar, although Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran last week.
Questions remain over whether Iran moved its stockpile of enriched uranium prior to the strikes, and whether centrifuges remain intact at nuclear sites.
Grossi said the IAEA is not present in Iran, and so unable to make any direct evaluations of the damage. But according to available intelligence reports, “it is clear that there has been severe damage, but it’s not total damage,” Grossi said.
Some stockpiles of enriched uranium could have been moved by Iran before the strikes, but the IAEA doesn’t “know where this material could be,” Grossi said.