Bushehr nuclear power plant

June 30 (UPI) — Member nations of the International Atomic Energy Agency called out Iran Monday for threats made against Rafael Grossi, the organization’s top official.

“Any undermining, sanctioning or even threat against the director general personally or his staff are completely unacceptable,” posted Austria’s Chancellor Christian Stocker to X Monday.

The French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs released a statement Monday that it “strongly condemns the threats against the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

The French statement was further echoed by a joint press release from France, Germany and the United Kingdom that condemned “threats against the Director General of the IAEA Rafael Grossi.”

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani spoke Sunday on the CBS News program “Face The Nation” and said that there was no threat made to Grossi, despite an article that ran last week in Iran’s ultra-conservative Kayhan newspaper that alleged Grossi to be a spy for Israel, and that “as soon as he enters Iran, he will be tried and executed for spying for Mossad and participating in the murder of the oppressed people of our country.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had responded Saturday on X that “calls in Iran for the arrest and execution of IAEA Director General Grossi are unacceptable and should be condemned.”

Iravani however, when asked by CBS if he condemned calls for Grossi to be executed, replied “Yeah.”

He also explained that IAEA inspectors already in Iran are safe but are not being permitted to inspect nuclear sites there. “It is our assessment is that they have not done their jobs,” Iravani said, and implied the IAEA “failed” in regard to the attacks made by Israel and United States on Iranian nuclear facilities.

In the joint statement made by Britain, France and Germany, the countries called on “Iranian authorities to refrain from any steps to cease cooperation with the IAEA.”

“We urge Iran to immediately resume full cooperation in line with its legally binding obligations, and to take all necessary steps to ensure the safety and security of IAEA personnel,” the statement continued.

“The organization’s work is now more important than ever and must urgently be continued,” said Stocker in the same X post he made Monday.

The IAEA had announced in a press release Friday that radiation levels in the Gulf region had remained normal following the attacks on Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and the Tehran Research Reactor.

Grossi explained in the release that the attacks “could have caused a radiological accident with potential consequences in Iran as well as beyond its borders.”

“It did not happen, and the worst nuclear safety scenario was thereby avoided,” Grossi said.,

June 29 (UPI) — Iran likely can resume uranium enrichment to make a nuclear bomb in a few months, despite damage to nuclear facilities by United States and Israel airstrikes, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog chief said.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was a “very serious level of damage” to the nuclear facilities during an interview with CBS News on Saturday.

U.S. President Donald Trump said U.S. airstrikes on June 21 “obliterated” the facilities, including Fordo, which is underground in a mountain. Initial intelligence assessments suggested that the strikes were successful but set back Iran’s program by months — not years.

“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,” Grossi said. “Some is still standing. So there is, of course, an important setback in terms of those of those capabilities.”

He explained what remains.

“The capacities they have are there,” Grossi said. “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.”

He wants International Atomic Energy officials to be able to return sites for an assessment.

“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,” Grissi said. “This is contingent on negotiations, which may or may not restart.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who said the facilities were “seriously damaged,” posted on X on Friday that “Grossi’s insistence on visiting the bombed sites under the pretext of safeguards is meaningless and possibly even malign in intent.”

Israel was fearful that Iran was nearly ready to have a nuclear bomb within months, and began airstrikes on June 13. Israel relied on American B-2 fighter jets that can send bombs deep into the ground.

Earlier this month, the IAEA said Iran amassed enough 60% enriched uranium to potentially make nine nuclear bombs.

Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, nuclear deal, which was negotiated by Iran, the United States and the EU, Iran wasn’t permitted to enrich uranium above 3.67% purity, which is the level need to fuel commercial nuclear power plants. Iran also was not allowed to carry out any enrichment at the Fordo plant for 15 years.

In 2018, President Donald Trump abandoned the agreement among world powers, and instead reinstated U.S. sanctions in an attempt to stop Iran from moving toward making a bomb. Iran resumed enrichment at Fordo in 2021.

On Friday, the IAEA said radiation levels in the Gulf region remain after the bombings.

Grossi, citing regional data through the 48-nation International Radiation Monitoring System, said the “the worst nuclear safety scenario was thereby avoided.”

The main concern IAEA had was for the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and the Tehran Research Reactor because strikes to either facility, including off-site power lines, would have cause some type of radiological accident felt in both Iran and neighboring nations, but “it did not happen,” he said.

Grossi noted that the airstrikes would have caused localized radioactive releases inside the impacted facilities and localized toxic effects, based on the roughly 900 pounds of enriched uranium Iran is thought to have had before the attacks.

Trump has said he would “absolutely” consider bombing Iran again if intelligence found that it could enrich uranium to concerning levels.

June 18 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump was weighing overnight whether to take the country to war with Iran after an emergency meeting of his national security team in the White House.

The 80-minute Situation Room meeting of Trump’s key Cabinet officials Tuesday evening concluded without a clear consensus, CBS News reported, but one option on the table was sending U.S. bombers to destroy underground nuclear sites that are impenetrable to Israeli warplanes.

The network said senior intelligence and Defense Department officials had told it that Iran’s heavily fortified Fordow uranium enrichment plant, 300 feet under a mountain near Qom and 85 miles south of Tehran, was one possible target.

Fordow was believed to be the facility most likely to reach a critical threshold where Iran’s nuclear development program — which it has always insisted is for civilian purposes only — crosses into a program capable of producing a nuclear warhead.

However, there was disagreement at the meeting attended by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and CIA Director John Ratcliffe over exactly what the United States’ next step should be.

Israeli airstrikes on the facility with bunker-busting bombs have thus far failed to penetrate the facility, with the International Atomic Energy Agency saying it had sustained no damage as of Monday.

“No damage has been seen at the site of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant or at the Khondab heavy water reactor, which is under construction. Bushehr nuclear power plant has not been targeted nor affected by the recent attacks, and neither has the Tehran Research Reactor,” IAEA Secretary General Rafael Grossi told the agency’s board.

However, he said Israeli strikes had caused considerable damage to above-ground facilities at Esfahan and Natanz, with one of the plants having produced U-235 uranium enriched up to 60%.

Naturally occurring U-235 uranium contains only a tiny proportion of chain-reacting U-235 isotope and must be “enriched” 3% to 5% for nuclear power purposes. To become weapons-grade, U-235 needs to be enriched to above 90%, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, although the super-enriched uranium is also used to produce isotopes used for nuclear medicine scans and radiotherapy.

The United States has powerful weapons that could, with repeated hits, penetrate a facility such as Fordow.

The BBC reported that would require deployment of America’s so-called Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000-pound bomb delivered by the U.S. Air Force’s B-2 stealth bomber, which can carry two of the monster munitions.

As the conflict entered its sixth day, Israel said it launched airstrikes involving 50 fighter jets overnight against a uranium centrifuge production site and multiple weapons facilities critical to Iran’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.

In a post on X, the Israel Defense Forces said the centrifuges made at the plant were for enriching uranium beyond civilian levels. Other sites hit included a facility making parts for surface-to-surface missiles used against Israel and another plant making surface-to-air missile components used to target aircraft.

The IDF said the strikes “directly degraded” Iran’s ability to threaten Israel and the wider region.

“We have delivered significant blows to the Iranian regime, and as such, they have been pushed back into central Iran. They are now focusing their efforts on conducting missile fire from the area of Isfahan. We are aiming at military targets; they are attacking civilian homes,” IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said.

Air raid sirens sounded across large swathes of central and northern Israel just before midnight local time after Iran launched a salvo of missiles at the country, including so-called “Fattah-1” hypersonic missiles.

Warnings sounded again across a smaller area in the north-east about 4.30 a.m. due to what the IDF called “hostile aircraft infiltration.”

Trump and Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei embarked on a war of words Tuesday with the Trump saying Khamenei would be an “easy target” if the United States and Israel chose to take him out. Trump also called for Tehran’s “unconditional surrender.”

“The battle begins,” Khamenei threatened in a social media post invoking Shia Islam’s Haider, the first Shia Imam and cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, accompanied by an image of fire raining down on a city.

We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy.”