The report comes amid growing concerns that Iran may pursue a nuclear weapon in response to the cascade of setbacks Tehran has suffered across the region in recent months. Iran is also under increasing pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last week promised to “finish the job” against Iran with U.S. support.

President Donald Trump has promised a return to “maximum pressure” against Iran, and this week announced two new rounds of sanctions designed to increase pressure on Iran’s oil industry and exports connected to its unmanned aerial vehicles and ballistic missile programs.

The IAEA findings, first reported by the Associated Press and Reuters, were distributed to member states Wednesday.

Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian purposes. But in recent months, Iranian officials have begun discussing changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine in public. A U.S. intelligence report released in December referenced the debate, saying that the country’s position “risks emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus.”

In Israel, some reporting has suggested that Netanyahu is considering an attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

Sixty percent enrichment is considered just a short step from the 90 percent needed to fuel a nuclear device. Last month, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi warned that the window for a diplomatic resolution to the West’s standoff with Iran may be closing. He said Iran already has enough nuclear material to make “several” bombs.

“The amount is there,” Grossi warned while responding to questions from European lawmakers on Iran’s nuclear program. “One thing is true: They have amassed enough nuclear material for several nuclear weapons, not one at this point.”

In an analysis of a 2024 IAEA report on Iran, researchers at the Institute for Science and International Security concluded that Iran would need roughly one month to further refine its stockpile into weapons-grade fuel.

The IAEA defines 25 kilograms of 90 percent enriched uranium as the threshold amount needed for a weapon. Depending on the bomb design, it can be much less than that.

Documents stolen from Iran by the Israeli government in 2018 revealed that Iran had, by 2003, mastered nearly all the technologies needed to make a simple nuclear weapon. It is believed that Iran has not yet acquired all the skills needed to design a small warhead that could be carried inside a missile.

U.S. intelligence agencies said in a report in November that they assess that Iran is not building an actual nuclear weapon. “Tehran has, however, undertaken activities that better position it to produce one, if it so chooses.”

Robert Einhorn, a former State Department official who worked on Iran nonproliferation policy, said that by surging uranium enrichment, Tehran was giving itself the capability to move more quickly to construct a nuclear weapon, and simultaneously positioning itself for eventual arms negotiations with Western powers.

“Iran believes strongly, for strategic and other reasons, it needs to have a near-weapons capability,” said Einhorn, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It wants to project the image of a country that could decide at any time to move very quickly to nuclear weapons.”

While there has been growing debate within Iran over becoming a nuclear power, “for now, I think they’re probably content to stay on the other side of the line,” he said.

One thing that could change Iran’s calculus is the possibility of an Israeli strike, potentially with U.S. support, on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Washington Post reported this month that multiple U.S. intelligence assessments warned that Israel is likely to strike Iran’s nuclear program in the coming months.

The intelligence warned that a preemptive attack would set back Tehran’s program by weeks or perhaps months, but also that it would escalate tensions across the Middle East and renew the prospect of a wider regional conflagration. A U.S. military intelligence report outlined two potential strike options, both of which would probably require U.S. assistance in terms of aerial refueling, and intelligence and surveillance support.

During a visit to Israel last week by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Netanyahu said that “Over the last 16 months, Israel has dealt a might blow to Iran’s terror axis. Under the strong leadership of President Trump … I have no doubt that we can and will finish the job.”

The “job” Netanyahu referred to was Israel’s ongoing attacks and significant weakening of Iranian proxies, including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and pro-Iranian militias in Iraq in the wake of Hamas’s October 2023 attack on southern Israel. U.S. and Israeli strikes have also targeted Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have launched several missile attacks against Israel.

Iran struck out for the first time directly against Israel with drone and missile attacks in April and October last year. The attacks were repelled by Israeli and U.S. countermeasures and were largely unsuccessful. Israel responded to the October event with 20 strikes inside Iran, targeting its drone and missile program and air defense network.

During his first term, Trump terminated U.S. participation in a nuclear deal with Iran that had imposed strict limits on its uranium enrichment, although his promise to negotiate a “better” deal came to nothing. President Joe Biden’s attempt to negotiate a new nuclear agreement also failed. Trump, who has stepped up U.S. military and diplomatic support for Israel, has now said he is willing to negotiate but is ready to use force to prevent Iran from constructing a nuclear weapon if necessary.

“There’s two ways to stopping them,” he said this month, “with bombs or a written piece of paper. I would love to make a deal with them without bombing them.”

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also early this month, said that talks with the United States were “not smart, wise or honorable.”

In a Tehran news conference Tuesday with his visiting Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said: “We will not negotiate under pressure, threats or sanctions. Therefore, as long as maximum pressure continues in its current form, there will be no possibility of direct negotiations between us and the United States on the nuclear issue.”