International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi on Wednesday warned that Iran’s recent progress in uranium enrichment and advanced centrifuges is a nuclear genie that cannot be fully reversed, in an interview with the Financial Times.
“You cannot put the genie back into the bottle – once you know how to do stuff, you know, and the only way to check this is through verification,” he said.
“The Iranian program has grown and become more sophisticated, so the linear return to 2015 is no longer possible,” Grossi said. “What you can do is keep their activities below the parameters of 2015.”
The director-general stated that the Islamic Republic is enriching uranium at purity levels that “only countries making bombs are reaching.” He said that “a country enriching at 60% is a very serious thing,” calling it “very concerning.”
Further, the UN nuclear watchdog chief said that “60% is almost weapons grade; commercial enrichment is 2%, 3%.”
While Iran has claimed to the IAEA that its increased enrichment of uranium was for medical purposes and research, Grossi reflected: “We don’t seem to find much need for that at the current level of industrial, medical activity in Iran, but this is for a country to decide.”
Until April, Iran had never enriched uranium above the 20% level, a level that was also viewed by the US, Israel and other allies as problematic.
Under the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Tehran was supposed to stay below the 5% enrichment level.
But Iran responded to an explosion at its Natanz nuclear facility by ramping up its enrichment levels.
The US, Israel and the moderate Sunni states have been in a nuclear standoff with Iran since May 2018, when the Trump administration pulled out of the JCPOA, citing holes in its ability to prevent the ayatollahs from developing a nuclear weapon as well as its failure to corral Tehran’s adventurism in the Middle East.
While trying to maintain good relations with the Islamic Republic, Grossi has sometimes angered Iranian officials when he has made statements such as in the Wednesday interview, drawing attention to dangers posed by their nuclear program.
Some of his predecessors made fewer public comments – and when they did speak out, tried to avoid headlines.
Grossi’s interview with the Financial Times along with his press conference on Monday seemed to be intended to warn the US that it must get Tehran back into the JCPOA or face greater nuclear peril.
He also voiced other concerns about Iran’s nuclear violations, saying, “Qualitatively, there’s been an important advancement,” in that its stockpile of enriched uranium is now more than 10 times the 300 kilogram JCPOA limit.