The International Atomic Energy Agency has pressed Iran to reopen its nuclear facilities to inspectors, describing renewed access as essential to its mandate of monitoring the Iranian nuclear programme. The call appears in a report the agency circulated among its member states on Friday.
Access has been severely restricted since the United States and Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025. The report said Tehran had told the agency that inspections could not continue while the current security situation persists. Inspections are meant to confirm that nuclear material is not being diverted towards weapons.
Concerns over the Isfahan enrichment plant
The report voiced particular worry about an underground uranium-enrichment plant near Isfahan in central Iran. Tehran declared the Isfahan Fuel Enrichment Plant in 2025, but it has not allowed IAEA inspectors to visit the site.
Inspectors do not know the facility’s exact location, whether it holds nuclear material, or how it is treated under international monitoring rules. The report did not establish that uranium enrichment is taking place there. The agency described the information gap as “a matter of proliferation concern”.
Iran’s stance and stalled monitoring
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi urged Iran to consider limited technical measures that could make inspection visits possible and help restore routine monitoring. The watchdog said it is “fully prepared to resume its safeguards activities in Iran at short notice.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said at a news conference in Tehran on Monday that Iran remained committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a pact aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. He blamed attacks by the United States and Israel for limiting cooperation with the agency.
The report also said the IAEA has been unable to verify the status of Iran’s stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium since the bombing of the nuclear facilities. The agency withdrew its inspectors for safety reasons, and Iran later passed a law suspending cooperation with it.
According to the report, Iran told the IAEA this month that talks on resuming inspections cannot move forward amid “persistent, explicit, and public threats by the President of the United States of America … to commit further acts of armed aggression.” Tehran 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.”
