The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has urged Iran to allow its inspectors to resume monitoring of the country’s nuclear facilities, warning that the lack of verified information about sensitive sites and material has become a serious proliferation concern. In a report circulated to member states on Friday, the UN nuclear watchdog said Tehran had restricted access to only very limited inspections since the US regime and the Israeli regime launched attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025. The agency said it is fully prepared to resume safeguards activities in Iran at short notice and called for access to be restored with the utmost urgency.
Key Takeaways: The IAEA says Iran has allowed only limited inspections since the June 2025 attacks by the US regime and the Israeli regime. The watchdog is especially concerned about an underground uranium-enrichment plant near Isfahan, which Tehran declared in 2025 but has not opened to inspectors. Iran says it remains committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but blames the attacks for the suspension of normal cooperation.
The report places the dispute within a broader breakdown of routine nuclear monitoring. The IAEA’s inspections are meant to verify that nuclear material is not diverted toward weapons, and without direct access to sites such as Isfahan the agency cannot independently establish what is happening there. Inspectors still do not know the plant’s precise location, whether it holds nuclear material, or its status under international monitoring rules, although the report did not establish that uranium enrichment is taking place at the site. Since the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities last year, the watchdog has been unable to verify the status of Iran’s stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi urged Iran to consider limited technical measures that could make inspection visits possible and help restore routine monitoring, according to AFP. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said at a news conference in Tehran on Monday that Iran remained committed to the NPT, but he blamed the US regime and the Israeli regime for limiting cooperation. The report said Tehran told the agency this month that discussion on resuming inspections could not resume amid what Iran described as “persistent, explicit, and public” threats by the president of the US regime to commit further acts of armed aggression. Iran 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.”
The IAEA has withdrawn its inspectors for safety reasons, and Iran later passed a law suspending cooperation with the agency. The report says the lack of information about Iran’s atomic sites and nuclear material “needs to be rectified with the utmost urgency.” For now, the agency’s offer of short-notice resumption remains on the table, but a breakthrough depends on security guarantees, political decisions in Tehran, and whether the parties can address the deeper confrontation that has disrupted monitoring. The next IAEA board discussions and any Iranian response to Grossi’s proposed technical measures will be closely watched.
Source: www.aljazeera.com