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Iran Urges IAEA to Avoid Politicizing its Nuclear Program

Iran's Vice-President for Strategic Affairs Javad Zarif speaks during the 55th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Iran's Vice-President for Strategic Affairs Javad Zarif speaks during the 55th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
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Iran Urges IAEA to Avoid Politicizing its Nuclear Program

Iran's Vice-President for Strategic Affairs Javad Zarif speaks during the 55th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman
Iran's Vice-President for Strategic Affairs Javad Zarif speaks during the 55th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2025. REUTERS/Yves Herman

Iran has called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to maintain its technical cooperation with the country and refrain from politicizing technical issues.

The Iranian request came shortly after Iranian Vice President for Strategic Affairs Javad Zarif said Washington's flexibility would leave room for negotiations.

“Iran and the IAEA must continue their cooperation in a technical and forward-looking environment,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Thursday during a telephone conversation with the agency’s chief, Rafael Grossi.

The Foreign Minister urged the IAEA to act within the framework of its responsibilities and continue cooperation with Iran in “a technical atmosphere,” away from “unjustified pressure” exerted by some countries.

The semi-official Mehr news agency said Araghchi reiterated his country’s determination to continue cooperation with the IAEA within the framework of its international obligations, stressing the agency needs to avoid politicization.

Iran earlier said Israel and the US would be “crazy” to attack its nuclear facilities, adding it would spell a “very bad disaster” for the region. Tehran also said that the new US administration should work to win back Iran’s trust if it wants a new round of nuclear negotiations.

Last week, US President Donald Trump said he wished to avoid military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, hoping instead for an agreement.

On Wednesday, Iranian newspaper Jomhouri-e Eslami, which is close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said the statements of regime officials signal that the willingness of Iran to negotiate has become greater than ever.

It added that in such case, there is hope for a breakthrough in foreign policy issues.

For his part, Javad Zarif criticized the US influence on his country's foreign policy, calling it an obstacle that must be removed.

Speaking at a conference in Tehran, titled Prospects of Regional and Global Developments in the Trump Era, Zarif said: “I do not view the United States as an opportunity for Iran's foreign policy; I see it as an obstacle.”

According to Mehr, he said Trump's focus on reviving hard power through economic pressure—such as tariffs and visa restrictions—was emblematic of his administration's approach to global dominance.

The Iranian Vice President added that Trump divided countries into “smaller nations that must show loyalty and other peer nations that do not.”

This dynamic, he suggested, “weakened the notion of stable alliances, replacing them with temporary, issue-based coalitions.”

Zarif also addressed perceptions of Iran’s weakened state, refuting that it posed a greater nuclear threat.

“They argue that military action is the only way to stop Iran,” he said, but added that Trump’s flexibility might leave room for negotiations.

After Trump's victory in the US presidential election, sources close to him said his administration will return to the ‘maximum pressure’ measures against Tehran. They also spoke about a possible military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

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How the US Used Its Bunker-Buster Bombs at Iranian Nuclear Sites

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine, responds to a question during a press conference about Operation Midnight Hammer at the Pentagon, June 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. (dpa)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine, responds to a question during a press conference about Operation Midnight Hammer at the Pentagon, June 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. (dpa)
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How the US Used Its Bunker-Buster Bombs at Iranian Nuclear Sites

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine, responds to a question during a press conference about Operation Midnight Hammer at the Pentagon, June 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. (dpa)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine, responds to a question during a press conference about Operation Midnight Hammer at the Pentagon, June 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. (dpa)

The deep penetrating bombs that the US dropped into two Iranian nuclear facilities were designed specifically for those sites and were the result of more than 15 years of intelligence and weapons design work, the Pentagon’s top leaders said Thursday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a press briefing that they are confident the weapons struck exactly as planned.

Caine, the nation’s top military officer, offered new details about the work that went into building the “bunker-buster” bombs and how the US used them to burrow into the Iranian sites. He sought to show the level of destruction but did not directly address President Donald Trump’s assertion that Tehran’s nuclear program has been “obliterated.”

Classified briefing

The bombs, called the GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator, have their roots in a decades-old classified briefing “of what looked like a major construction project in the mountains of Iran,” Caine said.

That turned out to be the Fordo fuel enrichment plant, with construction believed to have started around 2006. It became operational in 2009, the same year Tehran publicly acknowledged its existence.

The classified briefing was shown in 2009 to a Defense Threat Reduction Agency officer, who with a colleague “lived and breathed” Fordo for the next 15 years, studying the geology, construction dig, the earth moved and “every piece of equipment going in and every piece of equipment going out," Caine said.

What they concluded: The US didn't have a bomb that could destroy those sites. So the Pentagon got to work, Caine said.

“We had so many Ph.D.s working on the mock program — doing modeling and simulation — that we were quietly and in a secret way the biggest users of supercomputer hours within the United States of America,” he said.

How the bunker busters are designed

The 30,000-pound bomb is comprised of steel, explosives and a fuse programmed to a specific detonation time. The longer the fuse, the deeper the weapon will penetrate before exploding.

Over the years, the military tested and retested it hundreds of times on mock facilities, Caine said. Crews fine-tuned the bombs to detonate in the mock enrichment rooms, delaying detonation until they had reached a position to send a pressure blast through open tunnels to destroy equipment underground.

How the US said it bombed an Iranian underground nuclear facility

Fordo had two main ventilation routes into the underground facility and officials carefully eyed these entry points as a way to target the site.

Each route had three shafts — a main shaft and a smaller shaft on either side, which looked almost like a pitchfork in graphics provided by the Pentagon. In the days preceding the US attack, Iran placed large concrete slabs on top of both ventilation routes to try to protect them, Caine said.

In response, the US crafted an attack plan where six bunker-buster bombs would be used against each ventilation route, using the main shaft as a way down into the enrichment facility.

Seven B-2 stealth bombers were used, carrying two of the massive munitions apiece. The first bomb was used to eliminate the concrete slab, Caine said.

The next four bombs were dropped down the main shaft and into the complex at a speed of more than 1,000 feet per second before exploding, he said. A sixth bomb was dropped as a backup in case anything went wrong.

In addition to the 12 bombs dropped on Fordo, with six on each ventilation route, two more hit Iran's main Natanz facility, Caine said.

Each crew was able to confirm detonation as they saw the bombs drop from the aircraft in front of them: “We know that the trailing jets saw the first weapons function,” Caine said.

The pilots reported back that it was the brightest explosion they had ever seen — that it looked like daylight, he said.

Questions remain about the whereabouts of Iran's highly enriched uranium

Caine said the munitions were built, tested and loaded properly, guided to their intended targets and then exploded as designed.

“Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed,” Hegseth said.

However, questions remained as to whether the highly enriched uranium that Iran would need to develop a nuclear weapon was at the site at the time. Asked repeatedly, Hegseth did not say if the uranium had been destroyed or moved.

“I’m not aware of any intelligence that I’ve reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be — moved or otherwise,” Hegseth said.