France warns snapback sanctions remain EU's key leverage in Iran talks

“The capacities they have are there. They could have, in a matter of months—or even less—a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium,” Grossi told CBS News' Face the Nation on Sunday.

“Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared. There is still something there.”

Asked about the extent of damage from US military actions on nuclear sites, Grossi said it depends on how one defines damage.

“What happened—particularly in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, where Iran used to have, and still retains to some extent, capabilities for uranium treatment, conversion, and enrichment—has been significantly destroyed,” he said.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Wednesday there are “signs” that an agreement can be reached with Iran.

“We’re having conversations with the Iranians. There are multiple interlocutors reaching out to us. I think that they’re ready,” he told CNBC.

In his interview with CBS, Grossi clarified that the IAEA is not involved in those negotiations. “Our role is to monitor and verify. We’re not part of the direct talks,” he explained.

On whether Iran’s nuclear activity before the US and Israeli strikes indicated weaponization, Grossi said: “We haven’t seen a program aiming in that direction. But they are not answering very important, pending questions. That’s the truth.”

Last week, Iran’s parliament passed a bill to suspend cooperation with the IAEA. The Guardian Council approved it shortly afterward.

Grossi said that Iran remains a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which overrides domestic law.

“An international treaty takes precedence. You cannot cite internal legislation to avoid your international obligations. Iran has not done so yet, which I see as constructive,” Grossi added.

“This is a ceasefire agreement. This is not arms control. This is a ceasefire agreement, and the war can start at any moment,” said David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, DC.

“There were reports yesterday in the media or on X that Iran was digging back into the Isfahan mountain complex where enriched uranium may be stored. It is inviting attacks.”

Following the Israeli and US airstrikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, around 400 kilograms—more than 900 pounds—of uranium enriched to 60% purity is unaccounted for, and their whereabouts is not known.

Albright warned that Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpiles remain “very dangerous if there’s some remaining numbers of gas centrifuges that can be activated.”

"While the centrifuge program of Iran has essentially been destroyed, there are these remaining stocks of enriched uranium and there's 60% enriched, there's 20% enriched, and there's 5% enriched," he said.

"And Iran had the time and the motivation to move portions of these stocks, but it's really hotly debated on the outside where they are."

US President Donald Trump in an interview with Fox News ruled out the possibility that the stockpiles had been moved.

“They didn't move anything. You know, they moved themselves. They were all trying to live,” Trump said, adding that moving those uranium stockpiles would have been “very heavy, very, very heavy” and “very dangerous to do.”

Albright referred to the ongoing uncertainty about the amount and whereabouts of Iran’s enriched uranium: “It’s really hotly debated on the outside where they are. Some argue many of them are in Fordow where Iran thought Fordow was invincible… Others think maybe there’s some in the mountain complex near the Isfahan nuclear site.”

“It would be very risky for Iran to move forward with these things in the present climate,” he warned, adding that if Iran did restart enrichment using its existing stocks, “you’re talking weeks and months to get enough for several nuclear weapons.”

Nuclear weapon still an option for Iran

Albright said Iran’s centrifuge program and nuclear weapons infrastructure have been destroyed in Israeli and American airstrikes, but in the long term, Tehran “could reconstitute perhaps a very small enrichment program, a fraction of what it had, but that could be enough to give it weapon grade uranium for a bomb.”

“They would end its enrichment program and give up its stocks of enriched uranium in a verifiable manner. And that’s the expectation,” the expert added.

Albright urged the US to push the Islamic Republic to acknowledge defeat and avoid sacrificing its people for a nuclear weapon.

“Our challenge in the United States is to get the regime to realize they’ve lost this war… and that they shouldn’t take the view of some authoritarian leaders or dictators where they feel that they’re gonna fight and sacrifice their own people’s welfare… in order to hang on to some… enriched uranium. Is that really worth it?”

“If Iran continues down this path, it could end up sparking some retaliation, or not retaliation, but efforts by Israel to shut the tunnels again and make sure that the sites cannot be used," he warned.

The dovish comments were the most expansive official expression of Iran's nuclear stance since the end of a twelve-day war which saw the Islamic Republic's nuclear sites attacked by Israel and the United States.

However, the whereabouts of Iran's near-bomb-grade uranium stockpiles remains unknown.

"We would be prepared to transfer our stockpiles of 60% and 20% enriched uranium to another country and have them transferred out of Iranian territory in return for receiving yellowcake," Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told Al-Monitor in a written interview.

Before the conflict, Iranian officials had loudly rejected the idea of such a transfer.

Around 400 kilograms—more than 900 pounds—of uranium enriched to 60% purity is unaccounted for. A former top UN nuclear official told Iran International that the risk of Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon remains until the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirms its location.

“One should not relax because this material as such is enough for 10 nuclear weapons if it is enriched further to 90%,” former Deputy Director General of the IAEA Olli Heinonen told Eye for Iran.

Regional consortium

In his interview with Al-Monitor, Iravani added Tehran is open to a regional nuclear consortium broached in US-Iran talks but does not see the plan as a substitute for a domestic nuclear program.

Iran, the envoy said, is willing to “collaborate with all countries in our region that operate nuclear reactors — whether on issues of reactor safety or the supply of reactor fuel,” if such a move is a “complementary initiative” and not a substitute for Iran’s domestic nuclear program.

The United States, according to domestic media reports, proposed to Iran in talks preceding the war the creation of a nuclear consortium potentially including Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and the United States.

The arrangement would aim to supply Iran with enriched uranium for civilian use in exchange for partial sanctions relief on Iran’s oil exports, central bank, and the shipping sector.

Address unknown

The location of the proposed consortium was not determined in the talks as Tehran insisted enrichment must occur on its own soil.

Axios and The New York Times reported earlier this week that US negotiator Steve Witkoff has proposed creating a regional consortium to break the deadlock in stalled nuclear talks.

Iran's foreign ministry early this month rejected giving up domestic enrichment, but Iravani appeared to give the consortium idea its biggest official endorsement yet.

“A consortium could very well be one of the forms such cooperation might take,” Al-Monitor quoted Iravani as saying.

Asked if Iran would limit enrichment to the auspices of the consortium operating within Iran, Iravani told the outlet: “In principle, we have no objection to that; however, we should consider it based on the details of any potential proposals we receive.”

Iravani told the outlet that the Iranian parliament's recent move to bar cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency "does not signify Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT," or non-proliferation treaty.

A nuclear deal with the United States, Iravani added, must respect “Iran’s rights as a responsible (NPT) member”.

Around 400 kilograms—more than 900 pounds—of uranium enriched to 60% purity is unaccounted for.

Until the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirms its location, the risk remains high, former Deputy Director General of the IAEA Olli Heinonen warned.

“One should not relax because this material as such is enough for 10 nuclear weapons if it is enriched further to 90%,” Heinonen told Eye for Iran. “So in a big picture, yes, Mr. Trump was correct, but it should have had this caveat telling that it's not yet over.”

Trump gave the green light to launch 75 precision-guided munitions—including bunker-buster bombs—and more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles against Fordow and two other Iranian nuclear sites in the early hours last Sunday, Tehran time.

Satellite imagery appeared to show that the strikes had severely damaged or destroyed the Fordow plant and possibly the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed.

Trucks had reportedly been seen lining up at the Fordow facility in the days before the attack, prompting speculation Tehran may have relocated its uranium stockpiles in advance.

US and Israeli intelligence officials were aware of the movement at the time but opted not to act in order to track the trucks and await Trump’s final order to strike.

While Trump hailed the mission as a complete success—based on Israeli intelligence that said Iran’s nuclear program had been set back by “many years”—American officials said preliminary findings suggest a delay of only “a few months.”

A combative Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forcefully defended the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, calling them a “resounding success” and accusing the media of rooting for failure.

“Because you cheer against Trump so hard — in your DNA and in your blood, cheer against Trump — because you want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes,” Hegseth told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. “You have to hope maybe they weren’t effective.”

What can you do with enriched uranium and obliterated nuclear sites?

Heinonen explained that even with Iran’s main enrichment facilities damaged, the risk remains. A small, easily concealed facility, could turn the missing uranium into weapons-grade material within days.

“Then someone may ask, but they were just wiped away these enrichment plants, so why one has to worry, because such kind of installation, which can convert this material in a matter of days for the first weapon, needs about 1,000 centrifuges only."

"It's just a normal workshop,” he added, “not a big building. And it would be very difficult to find, because it can be concealed among others. Technical buildings in any industrial site or warehouse complex.”

Heinonen joined the IAEA in 1983 and served as Deputy Director-General and Head of the Department of Safeguards from 2005 to 2010. He was among the top officials overseeing Iran’s nuclear file during the pivotal period from 2002 to 2010.

“There is this history of concealment and I think that one has to be careful in accepting explanations,” Heinonen warned. “Iran started to work with uranium metal in early 1990s in secrecy ...to the IAEA… Never disclosed it… until we found it at a later date.”

Heinonen said even after the Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan strikes, “the question is what about the rest of the weapon?” Iran would still need to machine uranium metal into a weapon-ready shape, using small, controlled batches of critical material.

“It will take all this one about one month. That’s it,” he said. “From start to have the weapon components on your hand.”

But the presence and availability of trained engineers and technicians is also a factor. “They are technicians, they are engineers, they are people who get their hands dirty with this material. Are they still available?” he asked.

“If they are available, then this scenario… in principle [is] possible.”

A race to verify

Heinonen said the IAEA must now be given full access and cooperation by Iran to verify the location and condition of the uranium. If Iran is unwilling, there’s no magic tool to find it.

“Only intelligence. There is no magic detector which you fly around and say, okay, it's there,” he said. “If Iran wants to prove that they have the material, why to hide it? If they have no intention to use it, why to [not] find it?”

The missing material is a red flag that should expand the scope of inspections and investigations.

Iran recently informed the IAEA about a new underground enrichment facility, described as “heavily secured,” but Heinonen said its nature remains unclear.

“Let's find facts first. What was the new site? Can anyone tell? Was it enrichment? Was it the storage? Was the storage of centrifuges? Was it assembling of centrifuges?” he asked.

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Araghchi, posted on X Friday:
“The Parliament of Iran has voted for a halt to collaboration with the IAEA until the safety and security of our nuclear activities can be guaranteed.”

Araghchi’s statement signals a hardening stance in Tehran just as international inspectors are racing to verify the fate of Iran’s enriched uranium.

For Heinonen, the message is clear: transparency is now the only path to de-escalation.

“This is the truth-telling test,” he warned. “Because there's no reason to resist. If this is a civilian program, why restrict the IAEA's work?”

Until Iran proves otherwise, the world must treat the threat as far from over.

You can watch the full episode of Eye for Iran on YouTube or listen on any major podcast platform like Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music and Castbox.

"This damage has not been minor—serious harm has been done to our facilities. They are currently conducting a thorough assessment of the damage," he said in an interview with the state broadcaster, referring to Iran's Atomic Energy Agency.

Araghchi said Tehran would not allow the UN nuclear watchdog chief Raphael Grossi into the country as the parliament considers exiting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which mandates inspections.

"For now, we do not intend to allow Mr. Grossi into Tehran. As for the inspectors, it still needs to be reviewed—if their presence aligns with parliamentary law, we’ll consider it. But clearly, if they want to inspect the destroyed facilities, it means they’re trying to assess the extent of the damage."

A US domestic political row has escalated over how effective US strikes on the nuclear facilities had been, with US President Donald Trump saying they "obliterated" their targets by senior Democrats still wary.

'Come, let's negotiate'

Aragchi detailed alleged diplomatic communications during the conflict in which he accused the United States and Israel of starting a conflict despite US-Iran nuclear talks.

"Europeans would call and say, 'Stop the war and return to diplomacy,' and I responded, 'What do you mean? We were in the middle of diplomacy!' They were the ones who started the war," Araghchi said.

The foreign minister, who was the chief interlocutor with the United States in two-month talks which ended with Israel's surprise attack earlier this month, warned against the triggering of United Nations "snapback" sanctions.

"Iran’s nuclear issue will become far more complex and difficult if the snapback mechanism is triggered—just as they made things more complicated by launching a war," Araghchi added, signaling a hard line on reviving talks or making a nuclear deal.

"They thought they could destroy our nuclear facilities, leave us empty-handed at the negotiating table, and then say, 'Come, let’s negotiate.' That didn’t happen.'"