A member of the National Security Commission of Iran’s parliament stated that the “Islamic Republic needs half a day” to “produce the main fuel of a nuclear warhead” and threatened that during this period, the Iranian government could “increase the production of uranium from 60% to 90%.”
Javad Karimi-Qodousi, a figure close to the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who some observers call the unofficial spokesman of the leadership office, emphasized in a video he published on the social network ‘X’ on Tuesday, April 23, that although still in the fatwas of the leader of the Islamic Republic “the production of nuclear weapons is unacceptable,” if he were to recognize it once, it would be possible to produce it.
He quoted experts as saying that “we need half a day to increase the amount of uranium produced from 60% to 90%.”
His words sparked reactions and criticisms out of fear of international responses. The state-run newspaper Iran, referring to what Israel, America, and Western countries tried to accuse Iran of, wrote: “What factor causes the member of the National Security Commission of the parliament, who must seek to secure national interests, to burden the country with ill-considered and irresponsible statements?”
‘Iran’ called Javad Karimi-Qodousi’s claims “fruitless and harmful.” The Arman Meli newspaper also wrote on Wednesday, April 24, that his statements, according to expert interpretations, are adding fuel to the fire of Iran-phobia, and it is not yet known whether he will be sued or not.
Ali Qolhaki, a former MP, also wrote on the ‘X’ social network: “The intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 12,000 km is only for carrying a nuclear warhead, regardless of whether we have the knowledge to make it or not, but all your recent positions will definitely be attached to the report of the Atomic Energy Agency against the country.”
It should be noted that recently after Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), visited Iran, he noted that Iran is “weeks rather than months” away from having enough enriched uranium to develop a nuclear bomb.
He said that although uranium enrichment at near weapons-grade levels is cause for alarm, one cannot directly conclude that Iran now has a nuclear weapon.
“A functional nuclear warhead requires many other things independently of the production of the fissile material,” Grossi said.
He also said Iran’s objectives are “a matter of speculation.”
Grossi said the IAEA is not getting the level of access he believes it needs in Iran, which he said adds more to the speculation around Tehran’s nuclear program.
“I have been telling my Iranian counterparts time and again […] this activity raises eyebrows and is compounded by the fact that we are not getting the necessary degree of access and visibility that I believe should be necessary,” he said.
“When you put all of that together, then, of course, you end up with lots of question marks.”
Grossi highlighted unresolved IAEA findings, including traces of enriched uranium in unexpected locations, exacerbating doubts about Iran’s transparency.
“This has been at the center of the dialogue that I have been, and I am still trying to conduct, with Iran.”
In another part of his speech, Karimi-Qodousi warned the international community and added: “It is still unacceptable by the leader’s fatwas to produce nuclear weapons, but if he ever recognizes it, he has already said that at whatever level they threaten us, we will threaten them at the same level, and if they make a nuclear threat, we will answer them with a nuclear threat.”
In the past few months, regime officials have been questioned by journalists more often than before in various television programs about the time of nuclear weapons production.
But speculations about the regime’s malign intentions are still high. In March of last year, the US Federal Prosecutor’s Office accused one of the leaders of the Yakuza gangs in Japan of trying to sell uranium and plutonium to the regime.
Prosecutors have said that 60-year-old Takeshi Ebisawa, currently in prison in Brooklyn, New York, intended to help the Iranian regime build an atomic bomb by selling rare nuclear particles to Iran.
The US Department of Justice has announced that Ebisawa and his men were in Thailand to sell small samples of nuclear materials to an undercover agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration posing as a drug and arms trafficker associated with an Iranian commander.
