I24 News – Iran’s nuclear program is “galloping ahead” and the International Atomic Energy Agency has very limited visibility on what is happening, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told Spain’s El Pais newspaper in an interview published today.
In June, Iran began removing essentially all the agency’s monitoring equipment, installed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Grossi said at the time this could deal a “fatal blow” to chances of reviving the deal following 2018’s pullout by the United States.
“The bottom line is that for almost five weeks I have had very limited visibility, with a nuclear program that is galloping ahead and, therefore, if there is an agreement, it is going to be very difficult for me to reconstruct the puzzle of this whole period of forced blindness,” he told El Pais.
“It is not impossible, but it is going to require a very complex task and perhaps some specific agreements,” said Grossi, who was visiting Madrid.
Grossi said in June there was a window of just three to four weeks to restore at least some of the monitoring that was being scrapped before the IAEA lost the ability to piece together Iran’s most important nuclear activities.
Grossi said he was concerned and worried about the weeks with no visibility.
“The agency needed to reconstruct a database, without which any agreement will rest on a very fragile basis, because if we don’t know what’s there, how can we determine how much material to export, how many centrifuges to leave unused?,” he said.
When asked on Friday about the IAEA chief’s assertion that Iran’s nuclear program “is galloping ahead”, an Iranian official told reporters:, “That’s not true! It’s fake news! The ‘galloping’ metaphor is way off the mark!”
He then explained himself: “Because when it comes to nuclear enrichment, we’re definitely not ‘horsing’ around.”
“If anything,” the Iranian official added, “our nuclear enrichment program is more like a steam engine than a horse.”
“How so?” asked a reporter.
“It’s moving full steam ahead, that’s how!” the Iranian official said.