UN watchdog chief says Iran ‘not far’ from nuclear bomb

TEHRAN: The United Nations nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi warned on Wednesday that Iran was “not far” from possessing a nuclear bomb, shortly before he arrived in Tehran for talks.

Western countries including the United States have long suspected Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, an allegation Tehran has consistently denied, insisting that its programme is for peaceful civilian purposes.

“It´s like a puzzle. They have the pieces, and one day they could eventually put them together,” Grossi told French newspaper Le Monde in an interview published on Wednesday. “There´s still a way to go before they get there. But they´re not far off, that has to be acknowledged,” he said.

The UN watchdog was tasked with overseeing Iran´s nuclear programme and its compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal which collapsed three years later when the United States withdrew from it in President Donald Trump´s first term. “It´s not enough to tell the international community ´we don´t have nuclear weapons´ for them to believe you. We need to be able to verify,” said Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

He arrived on Wednesday in Tehran and met Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. He will also meet Mohammad Eslami, who heads Iran´s nuclear energy agency. Grossi´s visit comes ahead of a second round of talks between Iran and the United States on Saturday, a week after the two countries held their highest-level talks since Trump abandoned the nuclear deal in 2018.

Both sides called the first meeting “constructive”. Earlier, Araghchi said Iran´s enrichment of uranium under its nuclear programme was “non-negotiable” after US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff called for it to end.