The majority of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is likely still at its Isfahan nuclear complex, which was bombarded by air strikes last year and faced less intense attacks in this year’s US-Israeli war, the head of the UN nuclear agency told The Associated Press.
Rafael Grossi said in an interview on Tuesday that the International Atomic Energy Agency has satellite images showing the effects of the latest US-Israeli air strikes against Iran and that “we continue to get information.”
IAEA inspections ended at Isfahan when Israel last June launched a 12-day war that saw the United States bomb three Iranian nuclear sites.
The UN nuclear watchdog believes a large percentage of Iran’s highly enriched uranium “was stored there in June 2025 when the 12-day war broke out, and it has been there ever since,” Grossi said.
“We haven’t been able to inspect or to reject that the material is there and that the seals — the IAEA seals — remain there,” he said. “I hope we’ll be able to do that, so what I tell you is our best estimate.”
Images from an Airbus satellite show a truck loaded with 18 blue containers going into a tunnel at the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre on June 9, 2025, just before the start of the June war. Those containers, believed to contain highly enriched uranium, likely remain there.
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The IAEA also wants to inspect Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordo, where there is also some nuclear material, the IAEA director-general added.
Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, whose five-year review is underway at UN headquarters. Under its provisions, Iran is required to open its nuclear facilities to IAEA inspection, Grossi said.
Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the agency. Grossi has said the IAEA believes roughly 200 kilograms (about 440 pounds) is stored in tunnels at the Isfahan site.
The Iranian stockpile could allow the country to build as many as 10 nuclear bombs, should it decide to weaponise its programme, Grossi told the AP last year, should Iran choose to rush for the bomb.
Tehran has long insisted its nuclear programme is peaceful. President Donald Trump said one of the major reasons the United States went to war was to deny Iran the ability to develop nuclear weapons even as he has insisted that the strikes last June “obliterated” the country’s atomic programme.
IAEA has talked to Russia and others about taking Iran’s highly enriched uranium Grossi said the IAEA has discussed with Russia and others the possibility of sending Iran’s highly enriched uranium out of the country — a complex operation that would require either a political agreement or a major US military operation in hostile territory.
“What’s going to be important is that that material leaves Iran” or is blended to reduce its enrichment, he said.
