Head of UN’s Nuclear Watchdog Warns Iran Is ‘Not Entirely Transparent’ on Its Atomic Program 

Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency speaks at the panel session during the second day of the World Government Summit in Dubai on February 13, 2024. (AFP)
Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency speaks at the panel session during the second day of the World Government Summit in Dubai on February 13, 2024. (AFP)
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Head of UN’s Nuclear Watchdog Warns Iran Is ‘Not Entirely Transparent’ on Its Atomic Program 

Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency speaks at the panel session during the second day of the World Government Summit in Dubai on February 13, 2024. (AFP)
Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency speaks at the panel session during the second day of the World Government Summit in Dubai on February 13, 2024. (AFP)

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 country has all the pieces for a weapon "in our hands."

Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, 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 so chose. However, US 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 warned. "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."

Grossi did not identify the official. However, in a late night Iranian state television show on Sunday, Salehi appeared and 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.

Since 2022, Iranian officials have spoken openly about something long denied by Tehran as it enriches uranium at its closest-ever levels to weapons-grade material: Irn is ready to build an atomic weapon at will. That includes Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who told Al Jazeera that Tehran has the ability to build nuclear weapons, but does not intend to do so.

However, Salehi's comments represent a further escalation. He served as the head of the civilian Atomic Energy Organization of Iran under then-President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate within Iran's theocracy who reached the 2015 deal with world powers.

The further hardening of Iran's position comes as militias it arms in the region — Lebanon's Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi militias — have launched attacks targeting Israel. Meanwhile, the Houthis continue to attack commercial shipping in the region, sparking repeated airstrikes from the US and the United Kingdom.



Jailed PKK Leader Ocalan Says Armed Struggle with Türkiye Over

FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a poster of jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan during a spring festival of Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir, southeastern Türkiye, March 21, 2025. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a poster of jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan during a spring festival of Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir, southeastern Türkiye, March 21, 2025. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar/File Photo
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Jailed PKK Leader Ocalan Says Armed Struggle with Türkiye Over

FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a poster of jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan during a spring festival of Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir, southeastern Türkiye, March 21, 2025. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a poster of jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan during a spring festival of Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir, southeastern Türkiye, March 21, 2025. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar/File Photo

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), appeared in a rare online video on Wednesday to declare the group's armed struggle against Türkiye over and called for a full transition to democratic politics.

In the recording, dated June and released by Firat News Agency, which is close to the PKK, Ocalan urged Türkiye's parliament to set up a commission to oversee disarmament and manage a broader peace process.

"The phase of armed struggle has ended. This is not a loss, but a historic gain," he said. "The armed struggle stage must now be voluntarily replaced by a phase of democratic politics and law."

The PKK, which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for four decades and is designated a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union, decided in May to disband after an initial written appeal from Ocalan in February.

Since the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984 – originally with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state – the conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, imposed a heavy economic burden and fueled deep social and political divisions.

The video marks a rare and potentially pivotal moment in the long-running conflict, offering what could be President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most significant opportunity yet to seal a political settlement to the Kurdish issue, should his government choose to respond, Reuters reported.

It also comes before PKK militants begin handing over their weapons in groups in northern Iraq's Sulaymaniyah on Friday, in a major step in the process.

Seated in a beige polo shirt with a glass of water on the table in front of him, Ocalan appeared to read from a transcript in the seven-minute video – the first public footage or audio of him since his arrest in 1999. Six other jailed PKK members sat beside him, all looking directly at the camera.

He said the PKK, which has been based in northern Iraq's mountainous regions in recent years, had ended its separatist agenda.

"The main objective has been achieved – existence has been acknowledged. What remains would be excessive repetition and a dead end," he said.

Ocalan added that Türkiye's pro-Kurdish DEM Party, the third largest in parliament and which played a key role facilitating the PKK's disarmament decision, should work alongside other political parties to advance the peace process.

The PKK and DEM expect Ankara to address Kurdish political demands, potentially before weapons in Türkiye are handed over.

Ocalan's message came a day after Ibrahim Kalin, head of Türkiye's MIT intelligence agency, visited Baghdad for high-level meetings with Iraqi officials, the agency said. Kalin had earlier visited Erbil in northern Iraq as well.

Talks focused on strengthening border security and steps toward a "terror-free Türkiye," with the Iraqi government voicing full support for joint efforts to eliminate armed groups from the region.