The director of the United Nations’ nuclear body said that Iran’s uranium cannot be located by his agency following U.S. military strikes against the nuclear facilities over the past weekend.
Speaking to Fox News on June 24, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi was asked about roughly 900 pounds of potentially enriched uranium possessed by the Iranian regime.
The Fox News host had asked Grossi about his previous comment that he believed some of the enriched uranium was taken to an ancient site near Isfahan.
In response, Grossi said, “I have to be very precise. …We are the IAEA, so we are not speculating here.”
He then added, “We do not have information of the whereabouts of this material.”
Grossi said the Iranian regime should allow U.N. officials to investigate and perform a damage assessment.
“So, it is quite obvious you are asking me about it, that there is a question there: Where is this?” Grossi said.
“So, the way to asserting that is to allow the inspection activity to resume as soon as possible. And I think this would be for the benefit of all.”
The statement comes as President Donald Trump denied claims in an alleged Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report leaked to CNN by anonymous sources on Tuesday that said Iran’s nuclear capacities were not destroyed.
“It was obliteration, and you’ll see that,” Trump told reporters while attending the NATO summit in the Netherlands. He added that the alleged intelligence was “very inconclusive” and derided media outlets for reporting on it.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also at the NATO summit, said there would be an investigation into how the alleged intelligence assessment was leaked, and he dismissed it as “preliminary” and “low confidence.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, told reporters at the NATO conference that “these leakers are professional stabbers.”
Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff, who said he has read damage assessment reports from U.S. intelligence and other nations, reiterated on Tuesday night that the strikes had deprived Iran of the ability to develop a weapon and called it outrageous that the U.S. assessment had been shared with reporters.
Leak Denounced
“It’s treasonous, so it ought to be investigated,” Witkoff said during an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.
Vice President JD Vance said in a June 23 interview on Fox News that even if Iran is still in control of its stockpile of uranium, the United States has cut off Iran’s ability to convert it to a nuclear weapon.
“If they have 60 percent enriched uranium, but they don’t have the ability to enrich it to 90 percent, and, further, they don’t have the ability to convert that to a nuclear weapon, that is mission success. That is the obliteration of their nuclear program, which is why the president, I think, rightly is using that term,” Vance said.
Before the United States launched the airstrikes, Iran and Israel had been attacking one another for more than a week. Israeli and U.S. officials have long accused Iran of working to obtain a nuclear weapon, while Iran has denied it.
Earlier this week, Trump announced a cease-fire between Iran and Israel as both countries launched strikes on one another. Hours later, Trump told reporters that he wasn’t happy with either country and told Israel on social media to call back its warplanes and not to strike Iran.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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