WorldPosted at: Jun 29 2025 4:01PM


Nuclear problem could potentially arise amid secret Iranian activity at bombed sites, says ex-IAEA official

Tehran, June 29 (UNI) Recent Iranian activity on its bombed nuclear sites could break the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran, and even invite further attacks, potentially elevating the chances of a nuclear problem, a former IAEA official told Iran International.

“This is a ceasefire agreement. This is not arms control. This is a ceasefire agreement, and the war can start at any moment,” said David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, DC.

“There were reports yesterday in the media or on X that Iran was digging back into the Isfahan mountain complex where enriched uranium may be stored. It is inviting attacks.”

Post the Israeli and US airstrikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, around 400kg of highly enriched uranium – reported to have reached 60% purity – is currently unaccounted for, and their whereabouts unknown.

Preliminary intelligence reports by Israel, the US, and Europe have also proven inconclusive, with some assessments stating that while Tehran’s nuclear program has been pushed back by years, it has not been destroyed.

Iran on the other hand said that most of the US and Israeli strikes have inflicted superficial damage, only derailing the program by a few months, though the IAEA’s assessments of damages incurred at the centrifuges at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan has rebuked Tehran’s stance, confirming heavy damage, though the extent remains unknown.

Albright warned that Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpiles remain “very dangerous if there’s some remaining numbers of gas centrifuges that can be activated.”

"While the centrifuge program of Iran has essentially been destroyed, there are these remaining stocks of enriched uranium and there's 60% enriched, there's 20% enriched, and there's 5% enriched," he said.

"And Iran had the time and the motivation to move portions of these stocks, but it's really hotly debated on the outside where they are."

US President Donald Trump, had earlier said that it ‘impossible’ for Iran to have moved its nuclear stockpile before the attack, given both its weight and the constant surveillance of the area.

“They didn't move anything. You know, they moved themselves. They were all trying to live,” Trump said, adding that moving those uranium stockpiles would have been “very heavy, very, very heavy” and “very dangerous to do.”

The former IAEA official, supporting Trump’s statement said “It would be very risky for Iran to move forward with these things in the present climate.”

However, he hasn’t ruled out the nuclear option of Iran, noting that if Tehran “did restart enrichment using its existing stocks, you’re talking weeks and months to get enough for several nuclear weapons.”

Noting that while the Israeli-US strikes have largely Iran’s centrifuge program and nuclear weapons infrastructure, the Islamic Republic could possibly “reconstitute perhaps a very small enrichment program, a fraction of what it had, but that could be enough to give it weapons grade uranium for a bomb.”

“They would end its enrichment program and give up its stocks of enriched uranium in a verifiable manner. And that’s the expectation,” he added.



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