UN watchdog urges Iran to restore nuclear inspections

The UN nuclear watchdog is pressing Iran to reopen its nuclear facilities to inspectors, warning that it cannot verify the country’s enriched uranium stockpile or determine whether a declared enrichment plant near Isfahan holds nuclear material.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report circulated to member states that it was “increasingly concerned” about the Isfahan Fuel Enrichment Plant, which Iran declared in June 2025 but has not allowed inspectors to visit. The agency does not know the plant’s precise location or whether it contains nuclear material. The report did not establish that enrichment is taking place there, Al Jazeera reported.

“The Agency’s lack of information about [Iran’s] nuclear material and access to facilities to verify it is a matter of serious proliferation concern… and needs to be rectified with the utmost urgency,” the IAEA said, according to the BBC. The agency said it was “fully prepared to resume its safeguards activities in Iran at short notice,” Al Jazeera reported.

Iran informed the IAEA of its plans for the plant on June 12, 2025, shortly after the agency passed a resolution declaring that Iran had failed to meet its nuclear safeguards obligations, according to the BBC. Iran initially agreed to an inspection, but the visit was canceled after Israel began striking Iranian nuclear sites the following day. The United States joined the strikes later that month.

Since those attacks, Iran has allowed only very limited inspections. The IAEA withdrew its inspectors for safety reasons, and Iran later passed a law suspending cooperation with the agency, Al Jazeera reported. Without access, the watchdog cannot independently verify Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile or determine what is happening at facilities it cannot inspect.

Iran has told the agency that inspections cannot resume under the current security conditions. According to Al Jazeera, Tehran said this month that discussions about restarting visits could not proceed amid “persistent, explicit, and public threats by the President of the United States of America … to commit further acts of armed aggression”. It said the issue would not be resolved “until the root causes of the present situation are addressed and the essential requirements for normal safeguards implementation are restored”.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi urged Iran to consider limited technical steps that could make inspection visits possible, Al Jazeera reported, citing AFP. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Iran remained committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but blamed the US and Israeli attacks for the limits on cooperation.

Before the June 2025 strikes, Iran had accumulated an estimated 441 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% purity, close to weapons grade, according to the BBC. Under a 2015 nuclear deal, Iran had agreed to limit its enriched uranium stockpile to 300 kilograms and enrichment to 3.67%, limits it subsequently exceeded.

The BBC reported that the nuclear complex at Isfahan suffered extensive damage in the strikes, particularly above ground, while the condition of underground facilities remains unclear. The IAEA believes much of Iran’s highly enriched uranium was stored there. The United States and Israel said they struck Iran’s nuclear sites to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies seeking them and says its nuclear program is solely for peaceful civilian purposes.