Iran is assessing the damage and lashing out over the American and Israeli airstrikes on its nuclear sites, though Tehran kept open the possibility Tuesday of resuming talks with Washington over its atomic program.

The comments by government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani also included another acknowledgment that Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz — key sites within Iran’s nuclear program — had been “seriously damaged” by the American strikes. Iran's state-run IRNA news agency quoted Mohajerani as making the remarks at a briefing for journalists.

That acknowledgment comes as Iran's theocracy has slowly begun to admit the scale of the damage wrought by the 12-day war with Israel, which saw Israeli fighter jets decimate the country's air defenses and conduct strikes at will over the Islamic Republic. And keeping the door open to talks with the United States likely shows Tehran wants to avoid further economic pain as another deadline over U.N. sanctions looms.

"No date (for U.S. talks) is announced, and it's not probably very soon, but a decision hasn't been made in this field,” Mohajerani said.

Iran offers rising death toll

Israeli airstrikes, which began June 13, decimated the upper ranks of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard and targeted its arsenal of ballistic missiles. The strikes also hit Iran's nuclear sites, which Israel claimed put Tehran within reach of a nuclear weapon. U.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency had assessed Iran last had an organized nuclear weapons program in 2003, though Tehran had been enriching uranium up to 60% — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

On Monday, Iranian judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir offered a sharply increased, government-issued death toll from the war. He said that the Israeli attacks killed 935 “Iranian citizens,” including 38 children and 102 women, IRNA reported.

“The enemy aimed to change the country’s circumstances by assassinating military commanders and scientists, intending to spread fear and exert pressure," Jahangir added. However, he asserted — like others up to 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — that Iran had “won” the war.

Iran has a long history of offering lower death counts around unrest over political considerations. The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, has put the death toll at 1,190 people killed, including 436 civilians and 435 security force members. The attacks wounded another 4,475 people, the group said.

Activity seen at Iran's Fordo facility

Meanwhile, it appears that Iranian officials now are assessing the damage done by the American strikes conducted on the three nuclear sites on June 22, including those at Fordo, a site built under a mountain about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Tehran.

Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press show Iranian officials at Fordo on Monday likely examining the damage caused by American bunker busters. Trucks could be seen in the images, as well as at least one crane and an excavator at tunnels on the site. That corresponded to images shot Sunday by Maxar Technologies similarly showing the ongoing work.

The tunnels likely had been filled in by Iran before the strikes to protect the facility. The presence of trucks before the attacks has raised questions about whether any enriched uranium or centrifuges had been spirited away before the attack, something repeatedly claimed by Iranian officials. Even before the strikes, the IAEA warned that its inspectors had lost their “continuity of knowledge” regarding the program, meaning material could be at undeclared sites in the country.

Iran hasn't said what work is being done at the sites, though it has said that the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran planned to issue a report about the damage done by the strikes.

Hard-liners lash out

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, whose profile sharply rose during the war, also has kept open the possibility of talks with the U.S.

However, hard-liners within Iran are increasingly criticizing any effort at negotiations or cooperation with the West. Iran's hard-line Kayhan newspaper, in a piece written by its Khamenei-appointed managing editor, Hossein Shariatmadari, mocked any possible talks Tuesday by saying being a “traitor or stupid are two sides of the same coin.”

Shariatmadari's newspaper on Saturday also suggested that the IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi, should be “tried and executed” if he visited Iran — something that drew immediate criticism from European nations and others.

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Iran to suspend work with UN nuclear watchdog, president says

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian enacted a law passed by the country’s parliament last week that would end Tehran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The legislation was approved within days of the U.S. carrying out Operation Midnight Hammer, in which it struck three major nuclear sites in Iran: Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow.

The law stipulates that any future inspection of Iran’s nuclear facilities by the IAEA must be approved by the country’s Supreme National Security Council, according to Reuters. Iran maintains that the IAEA sided with the U.S. and Israel in the recent conflict. Additionally, Tehran claims that the IAEA’s resolution in early June paved the way for Israel’s strikes.

Pezeshkian’s order reportedly had no timetable or details about what the suspension of cooperation would entail, The Associated Press reported.

IAEA head of Media, Multimedia and Public Outreach Section and spokesperson Fredrik Dahl told Fox News Digital that the agency was still awaiting confirmation from Iran.

Nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran have been on pause since Israel launched Operation Rising Lion. Iran then wavered on whether it would continue the talks, claiming that the U.S. was complicit in Israel’s actions. However, President Donald Trump appeared hopeful that the two countries would return to the table, even after the U.S.’ historic strikes. On June 25, the president told reporters that the U.S. would talk with Iran the following week.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi recently told CBS News that "the doors for diplomacy will never slam shut." However, he also cast doubt on Trump’s timeline for when talks would resume.

"I don’t think negotiations will restart as quickly as that," Araghchi told CBS News. "In order for us to decide to reengage, we will have to first ensure that America will not revert back to targeting us in a military attack during the negotiations."

While Trump’s critics have argued that the administration has exaggerated the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear sites, parties involved in the conflict seemingly agreed on the status of the facilities. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei acknowledged that the sites were "badly damaged" in an interview with Al Jazeera.

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G7 urges talks to resume for deal on Iran nuclear program

Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven nations said on Monday they supported the ceasefire between Israel and Iran and urged for negotiations to resume for a deal to address Iran's nuclear program, according to a joint statement.

Since April, Iran and the U.S. have held talks aimed at finding a new diplomatic solution regarding Iran's nuclear program. Tehran says its program is peaceful and Israel and its allies say they want to ensure Iran cannot build a nuclear weapon.

"We call for the resumption of negotiations, resulting in a comprehensive, verifiable and durable agreement that addresses Iran's nuclear program," the G7 foreign ministers said.

Last week, Trump announced a ceasefire between U.S. ally Israel and its regional rival Iran to halt a war that began on June 13 when Israel attacked Iran. The Israel-Iran conflict had raised alarms in a region already on edge since the start of Israel's war in Gaza in October 2023.

Before the ceasefire was announced, Washington struck Iran's nuclear sites and Iran targeted a U.S. base in Qatar in retaliation.

The G7 foreign ministers said they urged "all parties to avoid actions that could further destabilize the region."

U.S. Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff has said talks between Washington and Tehran were "promising" and that Washington was hopeful for a long-term peace deal.

The G7 top diplomats denounced threats against the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Monday, after a hardline Iranian newspaper said IAEA boss Rafael Grossi should be tried and executed as an Israeli agent.

On June 12, the U.N. nuclear watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years.

Israel is the only Middle Eastern country believed to have nuclear weapons and said its war against Iran aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.

Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not. The U.N. nuclear watchdog, which carries out inspections in Iran, says it has "no credible indication" of an active, coordinated weapons program in Iran.

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Iran’s president orders country to suspend cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog IAEA

 Iran’s president on Wednesday ordered the country to suspend its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency after American and Israeli airstrikes hit its most-important nuclear facilities, likely further limiting inspectors' ability to track Tehran's program that had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels.

The order by President Masoud Pezeshkian included no timetables or details about what that suspension would entail. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi signaled in a CBS News interview that Tehran still would be willing to continue negotiations with the United States.

“I don’t think negotiations will restart as quickly as that,” Araghchi said, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump's comments that talks could start as early as this week. However, he added: “The doors of diplomacy will never slam shut.”

Pressure tactic

Iran has limited IAEA inspections in the past as a pressure tactic in negotiating with the West — though as of right now Tehran has denied that there's any immediate plans to resume talks with the United States that had been upended by the 12-day Iran-Israel war.

Iranian state television announced Pezeshkian's order, which followed a law passed by Iran’s parliament to suspend that cooperation. The bill already received the approval of Iran's constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, on Thursday, and likely the support of the country's Supreme National Security Council, which Pezeshkian chairs.

“The government is mandated to immediately suspend all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency under the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and its related Safeguards Agreement,” state television quoted the bill as saying. "This suspension will remain in effect until certain conditions are met, including the guaranteed security of nuclear facilities and scientists.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what that would mean for the Vienna-based IAEA, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. The agency long has monitored Iran’s nuclear program and said that it was waiting for an official communication from Iran on what the suspension meant.

A diplomat with knowledge of IAEA operations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation in Iran, said that IAEA inspectors were still there after the announcement and hadn’t been told by the government to leave.

Israel condemns the move

Iran's decision drew an immediate condemnation from Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

“Iran has just issued a scandalous announcement about suspending its cooperation with the IAEA,” he said in an X post. “This is a complete renunciation of all its international nuclear obligations and commitments.”

Saar urged European nations that were part of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal to implement its so-called snapback clause. That would reimpose all U.N. sanctions on it originally lifted by Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers, if one of its Western parties declares the Islamic Republic is out of compliance with it.

Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, and the IAEA doesn't have access to its weapons-related facilities.

Iran's decision stops short of experts' worst fears

Iran's move so far stops short of what experts feared the most. They had been concerned that Tehran, in response to the war, could decide to fully end its cooperation with the IAEA, abandon the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and rush toward a bomb. That treaty has countries agree not to build or obtain nuclear weapons and allows the IAEA to conduct inspections to verify that countries correctly declared their programs.

Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal allowed Iran to enrich uranium to 3.67% — enough to fuel a nuclear power plant, but far below the threshold of 90% needed for weapons-grade uranium. It also drastically reduced Iran’s stockpile of uranium, limited its use of centrifuges and relied on the IAEA to oversee Tehran’s compliance through additional oversight. The IAEA served as the main assessor of Iran's commitment to the deal.

But Trump, in his first term in 2018, unilaterally withdrew Washington from the accord, insisting it wasn’t tough enough and didn’t address Iran’s missile program or its support for militant groups in the wider Middle East. That set in motion years of tensions, including attacks at sea and on land.

Iran had been enriching up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. It also has enough of a stockpile to build multiple nuclear bombs, should it choose to do so. Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the IAEA, Western intelligence agencies and others say Tehran had an organized weapons program up until 2003.

Suspension comes after Israel, US airstrikes

Israeli airstrikes, which began June 13, decimated the upper ranks of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard and targeted its arsenal of ballistic missiles. The strikes also hit Iran’s nuclear sites, which Israel claimed put Tehran within reach of a nuclear weapon.

Iran has said the Israeli attacks killed 935 “Iranian citizens,” including 38 children and 102 women. However, Iran has a long history of offering lower death counts around unrest over political considerations.

The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, has put the death toll at 1,190 people killed, including 436 civilians and 435 security force members. The attacks wounded another 4,475 people, the group said.

Meanwhile, it appears that Iranian officials now are assessing the damage done by the American strikes conducted on the three nuclear sites on June 22, including those at Fordo, a site built under a mountain about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Tehran.

Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press show Iranian officials at Fordo on Monday likely examining the damage caused by American bunker-busters. Trucks could be seen in the images, as well as at least one crane and an excavator at tunnels on the site. That corresponded to images shot Sunday by Maxar Technologies similarly showing the ongoing work.

U.S. intelligence suggests the facilities were “completely obliterated” by the strikes, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told reporters Wednesday in a briefing, repeating the Trump administration's assertion.

He said the operation set back Iran's nuclear program by up to two years.

“We destroyed the components they would need to build a bomb,” Parnell said. “We believe Iran’s nuclear capability has been severely degraded.”

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Operation Midnight Hammer Pilots To Be Honored at White House July 4 Flyover

U.S. Air Force pilots who conducted the June 22 bombing mission on Iran’s nuclear facilities, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, will be celebrated at the White House’s Fourth of July event on Friday, a White House official confirmed.

The event will include a flyover of B-2 Spirit bombers, F-22 Raptors, and F-35 Lightning IIs — the same aircraft used in the June 22 strikes on Iran’s Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites, according to CBS News.

“President Trump looks forward to celebrating our nation’s founding on Friday in the nation’s capital,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday.

“To join in the celebration, the might of America’s Air Force will conduct a flyover featuring our state-of-the-art F-22s, B-2s, and F-35s — the same air capabilities used for the decisive and successful strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

The mission involved seven B-2 stealth bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri deploying 30,000-pound GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs on Iran’s underground enrichment facilities.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine said the aircraft went undetected — “part of a plan to maintain tactical surprise.” Additional personnel from Whiteman Air Force Base will also attend.

President Trump, who ordered the strikes, called the mission a resounding success.

“This was a devastating attack, and it knocked them for a loop,” Trump said days after the operation. He reiterated his stance at last week’s NATO summit in The Hague, claiming the sites were “obliterated” and calling media reports to the contrary disrespectful to the pilots.

“You should be praising those people … you’re hurting those people,” Trump said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed the sentiment: “Call it destroyed, defeated, or obliterated — this was a historically successful attack.”

An initial Pentagon assessment said the strikes caused major damage but likely only delayed Iran’s program by months. Trump and Hegseth disputed that, saying the impact could last years or decades. Following a classified briefing, senators offered mixed views.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said, “There’s no doubt there was damage,” but added, “allegations that we have obliterated their program don’t seem to stand up to reason.”

Republicans, however, described the mission as a clear success.

Trump, in an interview on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, confirmed the pilots would visit the White House, saying they are “going to come to the White House” without specifying a date. The Friday event will spotlight the pilots and the B-2 bombers’ role in the unprecedented operation.