U.N. Nuclear Body Demands Iran Stop Enriching Uranium and Allow Inspections

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution on Wednesday commanding Iran to “suspend all enrichment” activities and allow IAEA inspectors to properly assess how much enriched uranium it currently possesses.

The Iranian Islamist regime has obstructed proper IAEA oversight of its nuclear activities for years, allowing only brief inspections of its Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and no other nuclear sites. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has in particular demanded that inspectors be allowed access to enrichment facilities, citing Iran’s obligations per international law, but at press time has not yet received such permission.

The IAEA is the United Nations’ nuclear oversight agency, tasked with inspecting nuclear facilities and ensuring the implementation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and other relevant international law. Tehran has been at odds with the IAEA for years, though the U.N. body has only declared Iran in breach of international law once in the past 20 years: in June 2025, immediately prior to President Donald Trump announcing airstrikes on three critical Iranian enrichment sites.

The resolution was passed by the Board of Governors, the nations that constitute the membership of the agency, on Wednesday, backed by the United States. The document asserted that Iran had an obligation to allow IAEA inspections and must stop enriching uranium. The resolution was passed amid ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran towards a peace deal, which President Trump has stated will require Iran to commit to ending its nuclear activities.

“Iran’s many failures to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran … constitute non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with the Agency,” the resolution declared. The text demanded that Iran “suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, as well as work on all heavy water-related projects.”

The resolution described Iran allowing inspections of nuclear sites as “essential and urgent” to ensure that Iran abides by its legal obligations. It added that Iran must offer “complete information” regarding its nuclear program to the U.N. Iran is a signatory to the NPT.

The resolution passed with 21 votes in favor, including the United States, and only three opposed: Russia and China, two of Iran’s closest geopolitical allies, and Niger, one of the world’s largest uranium producers, which has reportedly been working on a deal to sell its uranium to Iran for years.

Prior to the drafting and passage of the resolution, Grossi, the IAEA director-general, presented his opening statements to the Board of Governors on June 8, expressing frustration and concern with Iran’s intransigence on its nuclear activities. Grossi affirmed that the agency cannot give the Board of Governors any information regarding Iran’s uranium stockpile, especially its status after the American airstrikes in June 2025, as the Iranian regime has not granted its inspectors access to the sites. Any estimates regarding how much enriched uranium Iran possesses are based on old information, he suggested, and are largely guesses.

The status of the uranium enrichment sites struck – in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan – also remains uncertain, so the agency has no way of knowing how much uranium Iran currently has the capacity to enrich. Prior to the airstrikes, Iran was believed to possess 440.9 kilograms of 60-percent enriched uranium and was believed to be enriching more at a rate that is incompatible with any known civilian use. Grossi has warned that a stockpile of that size could be used to build up to ten nuclear warheads.

“It is now almost one year that the Agency has had no access to any of the declared nuclear facilities affected by the military attacks of June 2025, therefore the Agency has lost continuity of knowledge of the previously declared nuclear material at those facilities,” Grossi explained. “This gives rise to a proliferation concern as this nuclear material includes 440 kg of highly enriched uranium, which the Agency has not been able to verify since June 2025.”

He added:

I call on Iran to engage the Agency constructively in order to facilitate the full and effective implementation of safeguards in Iran in accordance with the NPT Safeguards Agreement and implement the relevant provisions of Security Council and Board resolutions.

Grossi also offered “full support” to the negotiations between America and Iran towards a nuclear agreement, affirming he was personally ready to endorse a deal that was “verifiable.”

Grossi has been a harsh critic of the last attempt to establish a longstanding Iranian nuclear agreement, the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and discouraged parties from adopting any similar agreement.

As expected, the Iranian government reacted with outrage to the resolution, dismissing it as a “political” statement in favor of the United States.

“Today, the Board of Governors adopted, with a shaky vote, another political resolution on Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities, devoid of the professionalism expected from a technical body,” a statement on Wednesday from Iran’s U.N. mission read, according to Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). The statement went on to accuse the IAEA of being “instrumentalized by warmongers and decapitated in a way that is not even able to express a simple concern over the most extensive unlawful armed attacks.”

Separately, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi complained that the resolution was a “reversal of responsibility” and claimed that Iran could not allow inspectors into its nuclear sites because of the bombing.

“As recorded in IAEA documents, the attacks by the Zionist regime and the United States on Iran’s nuclear facilities halted verification activities and forced IAEA inspectors out of Iran for safety reasons,” Gharibabadi claimed in a social media post.

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