The world is facing a new nuclear arms race, the head of the United Nations’ Atomic Agency has warned.
Rafael Grossi said that rising conflict and instability around the world have meant that as many as 20 countries could pursue a nuclear bomb.
In an interview with The Telegraph, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a nuclear weapons watchdog, said countries that had signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty had been discussing breaching the pact.
‘There’s been a few important countries … in Europe, in Asia Minor, in the Far East that have mentioned [it] and where a public discussion is taking place about this possibility.
‘There is talk about ‘friendly proliferation’. There are all these things which fill me with concern because I believe that a world with 20 nuclear weapon states or more would be extremely dangerous,’ he added.
Under the 1970 deal, 191 countries vowed not to acquire nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the treaty recognises that five nuclear-weapon states, which include the US, UK, Russia, Germany and France, are free not to transfer weapons technology.
Of the world’s 12,000 nuclear warheads, Russia and the US hold around 90 per cent of them.
But due to a ‘current atmosphere of fragmentation, conflict, polarisation,’ Mr Grossi warned that countries such as Poland, Japan and South Korea could leave the world in a ‘fragile’ state.
‘At some point, we are going to see a crack in the system. And then we’ll have a domino [effect]. It is a very, very fragile position.’
The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafaek Grossi (pictured) has warned that the world is facing a new nuclear arms race
File photo: Firefighters work at the site of a recyclable materials warehouse hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine April 16, 2026
Mr Grossi’s remarks come as a US-Iran 14-day ceasefire is set to expire tomorrow following a round of peace talks.
Last week, Mr Grossi said that ‘very detailed’ measures to verify Iran’s nuclear activities must be included in a potential US-Iran agreement to end their war in the Middle East.
He also stressed the need for a thorough verification regime for Iran’s nuclear programme, but it is unclear whether a second round of talks will take place.
The Trump administration has said that preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon is a key war aim.
Iran has previously said it isn’t developing such weapons but rejected limits on its nuclear program.
Last weekend, in Pakistan, an initial round of talks between the two countries failed to produce an agreement.
The White House said Iran’s nuclear ambitions were a central sticking point. But an Iranian diplomatic official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the closed-door talks, denied that negotiations had failed over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
‘Iran has a very ambitious, wide nuclear program so all of that will require the presence of IAEA inspectors,’ Grossi told reporters in Seoul last week. ‘Otherwise, you will not have an agreement. You will have an illusion of an agreement.’
He said that any agreement on nuclear technology ‘requires very detailed verification mechanisms.’
Pictured: A Russian solid-fueled intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) with a nuclear warhead
Iran has not allowed the IAEA access to its nuclear facilities bombed by Israel and the United States during a 12-day war in June, according to a confidential IAEA report circulated to member states and seen by The Associated Press in February.
The report stressed that it ‘cannot verify whether Iran has suspended all enrichment-related activities,’ or the ‘size of Iran’s uranium stockpile at the affected nuclear facilities.’
Iran has long insisted its program is peaceful, but the IAEA and Western nations say Tehran had an organised nuclear weapons program up until 2003.
The IAEA has maintained that Iran has a stockpile of 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60 per cent purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent.
That stockpile could allow Iran to build as many as 10 nuclear bombs, should it decide to weaponise its program, according to Mr Grossi.
Such highly enriched nuclear material should normally be verified every month, according to the IAEA’s guidelines.
Tensions between Iran and the US flared over the weekend after the US Navy attacked and seized a ship on Sunday that it said was trying to evade its blockade of Iranian ports.
On Saturday, Iran fired at vessels and abruptly stopped traffic in the strait, abandoning its promise to allow some ships to pass and claiming the US was not holding up its side of the ceasefire.
The US actions are ‘incompatible with the claim of diplomacy,’ Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Monday in a social media post.
Mr Grossi’s remarks come as a US-Iran 14-day ceasefire is set to expire tomorrow following a round of peace talks. Pictured: Smoke and fire rise from the site of airstrikes at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran on March 7, 2026. Israel said on March 7 it had launched “broad-scale” strikes on targets in Tehran, as the Iranian state broadcaster reported an explosion in the western part of the city
He did not indicate what Iran will do after the ceasefire expires or whether Iran will return to a second round of negotiations with the US.
Iran said it had received new proposals from the US but suggested that a wide gap remains between the sides.
Issues that derailed the last round of negotiations included Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, its regional proxies and the Strait of Hormuz.
