UN Nuclear Watchdog Calls on Iran to Restore Inspector Access

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has called on Iran to restore access for its inspectors so they can resume checks at Iranian nuclear facilities. The call appears in a report circulated to the agency's member states, as Al Jazeera reported.

Inspections have been sharply limited since June 2025, when the United States and Israel attacked Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran has allowed only very limited IAEA inspections since then. The agency withdrew its inspectors from Iran for safety reasons after the attacks, and Iran later passed a law suspending its cooperation with the IAEA.

Iran has said it cannot resume inspections under the current security situation. It also told the agency in November that discussions on resuming inspections could not take place, citing what it described as persistent, explicit and public threats by the U.S. president to commit further acts of armed aggression. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Iran remained committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the international agreement aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

The IAEA has said that the lack of information about Iran's atomic sites and nuclear material is a proliferation concern, meaning a risk that nuclear weapons or the material to make them could spread. The agency said the gap needed to be rectified with the utmost urgency.

One site sits at the center of that gap. Iran declared the Isfahan Fuel Enrichment Plant, an underground uranium enrichment plant near the city of Isfahan, in 2025, but it has not permitted IAEA inspectors to visit. Inspectors do not know the plant's precise location, whether it holds nuclear material, or what its status is under international monitoring rules.

The agency has also been unable to verify the status of Iran's stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium, which is enriched to a level close to what is needed for a weapon, since the 2025 bombings of its nuclear facilities.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has urged Iran to consider limited technical measures that could make inspection visits possible. The agency said it is fully prepared to resume its safeguards activities, the checks that verify nuclear material is being used peacefully, in Iran at short notice.