Iran’s is enriching uranium at a level that “only countries making bombs are reaching,” the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an interview published Wednesday in the Financial Times called the enrichment program, in which Iran is enriching uranium to 60% purity, “very concerning.”
Weapons-grade uranium must be enriched to over 90 percent. By contrast, commercial uranium is generally enriched to up to 3%.
The interview comes as Iran and the world powers begin a fifth round of negotiations, including indirect negotiations with the United States, on reviving the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal that the United States left in 2018 and that Iran has been violating.
Grossi said he thinks it will not be possible to set Iran’s nuclear program back to the way it was before the 2015 nuclear deal was struck with the world powers, since it has advanced so much in recent years.
“You cannot put the genie back into the bottle — once you know how to do stuff, you know, and the only way to check this is through verification,” he said.