Reaching
the nuclear fuel at the Isfahan facility would not be easy for Tehran, however,
an unnamed official has told the agency
Israel believes that US strikes
on Iranian nuclear sites last month did not destroy enriched uranium stockpiles
at one of the facilities, meaning Tehran could be able to retrieve the nuclear
fuel, the AP has reported, citing a senior Israeli official.
US President Donald Trump
previously claimed that Tehran’s nuclear program had been “completely and
totally obliterated” after the US joined Israeli attacks on Iran and bombed the
country’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities on June 22. He was
backed by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who told lawmakers last month that
several key sites had been destroyed and would take years to rebuild. Tehran
maintains that its nuclear program is purely civilian and not intended to
create a weapon.
According to Israeli assessments,
deeply buried stocks of enriched uranium at Iran’s Isfahan facility are
“potentially retrievable,” the AP reported on Friday.
However, a high-ranking official
who talked to the news agency stressed that accessing the nuclear fuel
underground “would take a very difficult recovery effort” by Tehran.
Unlike the Fordow and Natanz
facilities, Isfahan was not targeted by American “bunker-buster” bombs during
the attack, reportedly only being struck by Tomahawk missiles.
Israel also does not give
credence to media reports claiming that Iran had moved its enriched uranium to
an undisclosed, safe location ahead of the US strikes. According to the Jewish
state, the nuclear fuel remained at the three sites when they were hit.
In the same article, the AP cited
two unnamed officials from the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), who
said they are still unaware if the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator munitions
were able to reach the depths they had been engineered for. The DTRA was
involved for decades in designing the “bunker-buster” bombs specifically to
target Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Iranian President Masoud
Pezeshkian told US journalist Tucker Carlson earlier this week that Tehran has
so far been unable to access its nuclear sites after what he labeled “unlawful
attacks” by the US. However, according to the president, it was already clear
that “many of the pieces of equipment and the facilities there have been
severely damaged.”
On Monday, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov offered Moscow as a mediator between Tehran and
Washington if the sides agree to resume nuclear talks, which had been halted
following the US strikes. Russia previously condemned the US and Israeli attacks
on Iran, warning that they significantly undermined the nuclear
non-proliferation regime.
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