Grossi banned from Iran

Following the decision by Iran’s parliament to suspend co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has been banned from entering Iran. “We will no longer give Grossi permission to be present at nuclear sites, or install cameras, because we saw information about our sites in documents obtained from the Israeli regime,” Iranian parliament vice speaker Hamid Reza Haji Babaei said on 28 June.

The same day, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed the decision. “We will not allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to install cameras at our nuclear sites, and the Agency’s chief will be banned from entering the country,” he said in a statement reported by the Iranian national news agency IRNA.

Following massive US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities (Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan) on 22 June, the real extent of the damage remains unclear. These were preceded by several days of Israeli attacks on the same and other Iranian nuclear facilities (Tehran and Arak).

While US President Donald Trump and his administration, along with Israeli officials continue to insist that the sites were “obliterated”, Iran and many independent experts, as well as Grossi, believe the sites may still be functional. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei noted: “Yes, our nuclear installations have been badly damaged. That’s for sure because [they have] come under repeated attacks,” he said. However, he declined to provide specific details about the condition of the nuclear sites or the current status of Iran’s nuclear programme. “I have nothing to add on this issue because it’s a technical matter,” he said, noting that the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) and related agencies were handling the matter.

Iranian officials had earlier said that nuclear material and key equipment had been removed from the sites before the attacks. This implied that they had been transferred to other sites not known to the IAEA.

In a CBS interview on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” Grossi repeatedly insisted that the IAEA should resume its inspections of Iran’s facilities. In the interview, recorded on 27 June but broadcast two days later, Grossi appeared unsure and sometimes confused.

Asked about the extent of the damage and the status of the nuclear programme he said there is agreement in describing this as “a very serious level of damage”. He added: It can be, you know, described in different ways, but it’s clear that what happened in particular in Fordo, Natanz, Isfahan, where Iran used to have and still has, to some degree, capabilities in terms of treatment, conversion and enrichment of uranium have been destroyed to an important degree. Some is still standing. So there is, of course, an important setback in terms of those- of those capabilities.”

However, he insisted: “At some point, the IAEA will have to return. Although our job is not to assess damage, but to re-establish the knowledge of the activities that take place there, and the access to the material, which is very, very important, the material that they will be producing if they continue with this activity…. This is contingent on negotiations which may or may not restart…. I think we have a snapshot of- of- of a programme which has been very seriously damaged… And now what we need to focus on is on the next steps.”

Asked about the law suspending Iran’s co-operation with IAEA, Grossi said he hoped this was not the case. He said because Iran was a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, “that implies that they have to work with the Agency. So we have to go…. I think I have to sit down with Iran and look into this, because at the end of the day, this whole thing, after the military strikes, will have to have a long lasting solution, which cannot be but a diplomatic one.” He added: “The work will have to continue, otherwise nobody will have an idea of what is happening in Iran. Iran will continue with a nuclear programme, the contours of which are still to be seen and will be I am sure, part of these negotiations, which I hope, will be resuming soon.”

Brennan asked Grossi if he knew where Iran had moved its uranium and equipment. “No, no, they did not inform that- that to us, but at the same time, there was no physical time, perhaps, to do it. Iran, for example, had announced to us that they had a new enrichment facility in Isfahan, and we were going to go on the 13th of June to- to check on that facility so that- and the site has been severely damaged and hit. So this is why I say it is indispensable.

He added: “It’s logical to presume that when they announce that they are going to be taking protective measures, this could be part of it. But, as I said, we don’t know where this material could be, or if part of it could have been, you know, under the attack during those 12 days. So some could have been destroyed as part of the attack, but some could have been moved. So there has to be at some point a clarification. If we don’t get that clarification, this will continue to be hanging, you know, over our heads as- as a potential problem. So this is why I say it’s so important, first of all, for Iran to allow our inspectors to continue their indispensable work as soon as possible.”

Asked about Iran’s capacity to restart nuclear development, Grossi said: “Iran had a very vast ambitious programme, and part of it may still be there, and if not, there is also the self-evident truth that the knowledge is there. The industrial capacity is there. Iran is a very sophisticated country in terms of nuclear technology, as is obvious. So you cannot disinvent this.”

Asked whether Iran’s programme was moving towards a weapon, he emphasised: “Something very, very important. They have all these capabilities, but for the Agency, they- first of all, they didn’t have nuclear weapons. Okay? This needs to be said. One can have an assessment nationally that they were close, okay? And I don’t get into that, because we, the IAEA, does not judge intentions. The IAEA looks at the activities of a country and reports it to the world.”

Later in the interview he said: “The capacities they have are there. 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. But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there… It is clear that there has been severe damage, but it’s not total damage, first of all. And secondly, Iran has the capacities there; industrial and technological capacities. So if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again.… We have to go back to the table and have a technically sound solution to this.”

Iran was not impressed by Grossi’s remarks. Foreign Minister Araghchi in a post on X said Grossi’s “insistence on visiting” the sites bombed by the US and Israel “under the pretext of safeguards is meaningless and possibly even malign in intent”.

Iran has also made it clear that Tehran will continue nuclear enrichment. Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the UN in an interview with CBS said Iran’s peaceful nuclear activity, “will remain always peaceful so enrichment is our right, and an inalienable right, and we want to implement this right…. I think that enrichment will not – never stop.”

Similarly, the Iranian Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, affirmed that Iran will continue its peaceful nuclear programme. He told Russia 24: “We do not seek to possess a nuclear bomb, but we cannot deprive our future generations of peaceful nuclear technology. Nuclear knowledge cannot be bombed away.”