The striking details shared by Steve Witkoff regarding his discussions with Iran—along with the regime’s boastful comments about its have seemingly been ignored by the U.N. nuclear agency.
Days into the U.S.-Israel joint campaign against Iran, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi posted on X: “No evidence has emerged that Iran is building a nuclear bomb.”
Digital reached out to the IAEA to ask how it can assess the potential development of a nuclear weapon without access to Iran’s facilities but received no response as of press time.
Grossi’s post coincided with U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff’s appearance on ’s Sean Hannity show earlier this week, where he detailed his talks with the Iranian regime prior to the U.S. and Israel launching their military operation against Tehran.
Witkoff disclosed that Iranian negotiators claimed they had an “inalienable right” to enrich uranium. When he countered that the Trump administration held the “inalienable right to stop [them],” the negotiators clarified this was only their starting position.
“They have roughly 10,000 kilograms of fissionable material, split into about 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium and another 1,000 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium,” Witkoff explained. “They manufacture their own centrifuges to enrich this material, so there’s . They have an endless supply of it. The 60% material can be upgraded to 90%—weapon-grade—in roughly one week, or at most 10 days. The 20% can reach weapon grade in three to four weeks.”
Witkoff added that during his first meeting with the negotiators, they stated “with no shame that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium and knew this could make 11 nuclear bombs, and that was their opening negotiating stance.”
“They were proud of it. They were proud to have evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could ,” Witkoff said.
Grossi, who is running to become the next United Nations Secretary-General, nevertheless admitted in his X post that Iran maintains “a large stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium” and noted the Islamic Republic has not allowed inspectors full access to its program. Given these facts, he said the IAEA “will not be in a position to confirm that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful” until Iran “assists in resolving the outstanding safeguards issues.”
Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), told Digital: “Throughout the Biden years, few paid attention to Rafael Grossi when he repeatedly warned publicly that with and providing false statements to the IAEA about ongoing investigations into undeclared facilities, activists, and nuclear material.”
The former Trump administration official said: “Some key facts are being ignored today. The IAEA Board last year found Iran in breach of the NPT. To this day, Grossi has confirmed the IAEA cannot verify Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful.”
He continued: “This is not Iraq where we lacked hard public evidence of a nuclear weapons program. Iran has built nearly every part of its nuclear weapons program in plain sight, with weaponization work proceeding at undeclared sites controlled by SPND. If the administration had evidence the regime was moving quickly to reconstitute key elements of that program—from advanced centrifuge manufacturing to completing a new underground enrichment site alongside advancing delivery vehicle programs—the president was fully justified in enforcing the red line he set after Operation Midnight Hammer.”
Spencer Faragasso, a senior fellow at the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), told Digital that his organization calculated prior to the June 2025 12-Day War that Iran possessed 440.9 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium. With about 24 or 25 kilograms of 90% enriched uranium required per weapon, Faragasso said Iran could produce 11 weapons in one month.
Faragasso noted there remain questions: Can Iran access its enriched materials? Do they have additional centrifuges not installed in the struck facilities?
“Enriching uranium to weapon grade is actually a tall order,” he said, explaining it would require a new enrichment site and components/materials Iran would either recover from destroyed facilities or illicitly import from abroad. With a few hundred centrifuges (enough for two or three cascades), Faragasso said Iran could enrich its uranium stores to weapon grade.
“To be clear, the successes gained from are not permanent, and regime officials have publicly stated their desire to reconstitute their enrichment and nuclear programs,” he said. “The longer time passes, the worse the situation will get. It won’t improve—especially regarding the ballistic missile program.”
He said Iran had previously expressed interest in opening a fourth enrichment site, which the IAEA stated was in Esfahan. According to Faragasso, there was “never confirmation” of the site’s location or construction progress.
The group is now tracking an Israeli strike on March 3 at Min-Zadayi—a site Faragasso said was “completely unknown” to them previously. The Israel Defense Forces reported on X that the site was “used by a group of nuclear scientists working to develop a key component for nuclear weapons.”
The State Department referred Digital to remarks made by Secretary of State to the press on Tuesday about Iran’s nuclear program.
“This terrorist, radical, cleric-led regime must never be allowed to have nuclear weapons.” Explaining the Islamic Republic was “willing to slaughter its own people in the streets,” Rubio told reporters: “Imagine what they would do to us. Imagine what they would do to others. Under President Trump, that will never, ever happen.”