Nuclear watchdog warns Iran is not ‘transparent’ with atomic program

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog warned Tuesday that Iran is “not entirely transparent” regarding its atomic program, particularly after an official who once led Tehran’s program announced the Islamic Republic has all the pieces for a weapon “in our hands.”

Speaking at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, just across the Persian Gulf, Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, alluded to remarks made this weekend by Ali Akbar Salehi. Grossi noted “an accumulation of complexities” in the wider Middle East amid Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Iran, after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, has pursued nuclear enrichment just below weapons-grade levels. Tehran has accumulated enough enriched uranium to build several weapons if it chooses. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and others assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program. Israel long has been believed to have its own nuclear weapons program.

Iran is “presenting a face which is not entirely transparent when it comes to its nuclear activities. Of course this increases dangers,” Grossi said. “There’s loose talk about nuclear weapons more and more, including in Iran recently. A very high official said, in fact, we have everything, it’s disassembled. Well, please let me know what you have.”

Iran, as a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, has pledged to allow the IAEA to visit its atomic sites to ensure its program is peaceful. Tehran also agreed to additional oversight from the IAEA as part of the 2015 nuclear deal.

Grossi did not identify the Iranian official who made the comment. However, in an Iranian state television show late Sunday, Salehi said that the country had all it needed to build a weapon.

“We have all the (pieces) of nuclear science and technology. Let me give an example,” Salehi said. “What does a car need? It needs a chassis, it needs an engine, it needs a steering wheel, it needs a gearbox. Have you made a gearbox? I say yes. An engine? But each one is for its own purpose.”

Salehi made a similar comment Saturday.

“We have it in our hands,” he said then.