By TZBN Staff and Agencies.
Iran has collected enough uranium to build 12 nuclear bombs, an Israeli news outlet has announced, quoting the International Atomic Engergy Agency and a United States of America Intelligence report.
The Times of Israel has quoted International Atomic Energy Agency Chief, Rafael Grossi, as saying Iran had “developed much stronger capabilities” regarding various aspects of its nuclear program, and that the country’s uranium enrichment levels are “practically at the same level as nuclear-armed states.”
In a report in early December [2024], the Office of the United States Director of National Intelligence warned that “Iran now has enough fissile material to make more than a dozen nuclear weapons,” but said it had not yet decided to break out to a bomb.
According to an IAEA report handed to Britain, France and Germany and leaked to the press earlier this month, Iran has begun dramatically expanding its production of uranium enriched to near-weapons grade levels, collecting enough material for “several bombs” already.
Under these circumstances, it was now futile to attempt riviving the 2015 nuclear accord, in which Iran had agreed to limit nuclear enrichment. There was little point in trying to revive the 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers, with Iran already practically a nuclear threshold state, the IAEA Chief said in Rome this mid-December, 2024.
“The philosophy of the original accord with Iran can be used, but that agreement is no longer useful,” Grossi told Italian news agency ANSA on the sidelines of a meeting at the foreign ministry in Rome.
“[Iran] has uranium at 60% — 90% is military grade — and is thus practically at the same level as nuclear-armed states,” Grossi said.
Iran has blown past stockpile limits set by the landmark pact and spurned inspections since Washington abandoned the deal in 2018, the Times of Israel has reported, adding that reviving the Iran deal was now irrelevant since Tehran is on cusp of nuke.
Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran was only permitted to enrich uranium to 3.68 percent purity, a level consistent with civilian uses of nuclear technology that Iran claimed were its only pursuit, capping its stockpile at 300 kilograms.
Sealed in 2015 following years of tightrope negotiations between Iran and the US, UK, Germany, France, China and Russia, the JCPOA was hailed by its boosters as a watershed opportunity to curb Iran’s nuclear activities, with world powers agreeing to lift sanctions that had crippled the Islamic Republic’s economy.
According to the IAEA at the time, before the accord, Iran had amassed just over 200 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20% purity, and around 10,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium at levels of 5% purity or lower.
Then-president Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the accord in 2018, and failed to deliver on a promise to renegotiate a better deal. Attempts by US President Joe Biden’s administration to negotiate an American return to the pact fell apart in mid-2023, and Trump’s impending return to the White House has punctured hopes for reviving the deal.
Iran has meanwhile steadily ramped up enrichment activity since the US left the deal and reimposed sanctions, rolling out advanced new centrifuges and issuing warnings that it could speed up the process even further.
In its report earlier in December 2024, the IAEA warned that Tehran likely had enough material to build four bombs. Grossi said at the time that Iran was set to begin producing 60%-enriched uranium at eight or more times the current rate.
Grossi told ANSA Monday that given Iran’s “new reality,” the international community would need to rethink the technical steps of a denuclearization agreement with Tehran.
“We must reformulate the agreement,” Grossi said. “This is a complex process whereby the European countries and the US, Russia, and China will have to sit at the table with [the IAEA] to define a system that serves the new Iranian reality.”
The UK, France, and Germany have already expressed hopes of convening talks with Iran before October 2025, when some parts of the deal are set to expire, including its endorsement from the UN Security Council.
