UN nuclear watchdog chief visits Iran amid ongoing monitoring challenges

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi is in Iran amid challenges to monitor the country's nuclear program, which has progressed rapidly while tensions between Iran and Israel remain high. Grossi has warned Iran has enough enriched uranium for several nuclear bombs, raising concerns that its centrifuges may be used for clandestine enrichment. Despite Israeli attacks on nuclear sites in Isfahan, Grossi plans to attend a conference there. Iran has repeatedly threatened to pursue atomic weapons, but Supreme Leader Khamenei has previously forbidden it. However, fatwas can be revised by Khamenei's successors. US intelligence and the IAEA believe Iran had a nuclear program until 2003, but recent assessments suggest they are not currently pursuing weapon development. Despite impediments to inspections, Iranian officials insist on cooperation with the IAEA. Simultaneously, tensions between Iran and Israel have escalated after Iran launched an attack in response to Israel's apparent assault in Syria, raising concerns that Iran might pursue a nuclear bomb in response to a major attack.

The head of the United Nations' atomic watchdog travelled Monday to Iran, where his agency faces increasing difficulty in monitoring the Islamic Republic's rapidly advancing nuclear program as tensions remain high in the wider Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war.

Rafael Mariano Grossi already has warned Tehran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade levels to make "several" nuclear bombs if it chose to do so. He has acknowledged the agency can't guarantee that none of Iran's centrifuges may have been peeled away for clandestine enrichment.

Those challenges now find themselves entangled in attacks between Israel and Iran, with the city of Isfahan apparently coming under Israeli fire in recent weeks despite it being surrounded by sensitive nuclear sites. Grossi is likely to attend an Iranian nuclear conference there while on his two-day trip to Iran.

"Problems will not disappear,'' Grossi told an International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors' meeting in March. ''They will only get worse. So, we need to address this in a serious way." In Tehran, Grossi and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian shook hands in front of journalists before going into a meeting. Authorities offered no immediate comment on their discussions.

Grossi will travel to Isfahan on Tuesday before heading back to Vienna, where he plans to give an update to journalists.

Tensions have grown between Iran and the IAEA since then-President Donald Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdraw America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. Since then, Iran has abandoned all limits the deal put on its programme and enriches uranium to 60% purity — near weapons-grade levels of 90%.

IAEA surveillance cameras have been disrupted, while Iran has barred some of the agency's most experienced inspectors.

Meanwhile, Iranian officials have increasingly threatened they could pursue atomic weapons.

"For us, making the atomic bomb is easier than not building atomic bomb,'' said Mahmoud Reza Aghamiri, the chancellor of Tehran Shahid Beheshti University and a specialist in nuclear physics.

Iranian media quoted Aghamiri acknowledging Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had previously said making an atomic bomb is forbidden.

"But if his fatwa and viewpoint is changed, we have ability to build atomic bomb, too," Aghamiri added.

Aghamiri's comments follow a drumroll of others by Iranian lawmakers, those in its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and a former head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran suggesting Tehran could build the bomb.

Iranian diplomats for years have pointed to Khamenei's preachings as a binding fatwa, or religious edict, that Iran wouldn't build an atomic bomb.

"We do not need nuclear bombs. We have no intention of using a nuclear bomb," Khamenei said in a November 2006 speech, according to a transcript from his office. "We do not claim to dominate the world, like the Americans, we do not want to dominate the world by force and need a nuclear bomb. Our nuclear bomb and explosive power is our faith." But such edicts aren't written in stone. Khamenei's predecessor, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued fatwas that revised his own earlier pronouncements after he took power following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And anyone who would follow the 85-year-old Khamenei as the country's supreme leader could make his own fatwas revising those previously issued.

US intelligence agencies and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program up until 2003. The latest American intelligence community assessment says Iran "is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device".

At the Isfahan conference Monday, Mohammed Eslami of Iran's civilian nuclear arm insisted that cooperation with the IAEA and adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty "tops the policies and strategy of the Islamic Republic" — despite the impeded inspections and threats to build an atomic weapon.

"We have 22% of global inspections,'' Eslami said at one point. ''This amount of inspection has never been done in a country throughout history." Meanwhile, tensions between Iran and Israel have hit a new high. Tehran launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel after years of a shadow war between the two countries reached a climax with Israel's apparent attack on an Iranian consular building in Syria killed two Iranian generals and others.

Israel's own nuclear weapons programme, widely known by experts though never acknowledged by the country, didn't deter Iran's assault. And now experts increasingly suggest Iran could pursue the bomb itself after a major attack on it.

"With a tiny open attack on Iranian soil by the US and Israel, I believe Iran will conduct its first atomic test,'' analyst Saeed Leilaz said in April.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)