IAEA board demands Iran report uranium stocks, grant inspectors access to facilities

Iranian envoy denounces resolution, says it ignores Tehran’s ongoing cooperation with nuclear watchdog, claims access to sites unaffected by war has been granted

VIENNA, Austria (AP) — The UN atomic watchdog’s board on Wednesday demanded that Iran fully cooperate with the agency, provide complete information about its stockpile of near weapons-grade nuclear material, and grant its inspectors access to Iranian nuclear sites.

A resolution passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board also said that giving information and access are “essential and urgent” in order to enable verification that there’s no “diversion of nuclear material.”

Twenty-one countries on the IAEA’s 35-member board of governors voted for the resolution at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the outcome of the closed-door vote.

Russia, China and Niger opposed it, while 10 countries abstained, and one didn’t vote as it was in arrears.

The resolution was put forward by France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.

A senior Western diplomat, who wasn’t authorized to speak about the sensitive matter and so requested anonymity, said that the resolution “aims to keep diplomatic pressure on Iran to come into compliance with its legal safeguards obligations.”

The resolution comes at a time of heightened tensions in the Middle East, with the US having launched airstrikes early Wednesday against Iran after US President Donald Trump said Iran had downed a US Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz, and Tehran claiming to fire back at US targets in the region.

The escalating attacks threatened to derail efforts to end the war, as US President Donald Trump warned that the Iranian government would “pay the price” for stalled peace negotiations.

Since Israel and the United States struck Iran’s nuclear sites during the 12-day war in June 2025, Iran hasn’t given IAEA inspectors access to nuclear sites that were affected by the strikes — even though Tehran is legally obliged to cooperate with the watchdog under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The agency also has been unable to verify the status of the stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium since the June bombing.

According to the IAEA, Iran maintains a stockpile of 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60 percent purity — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade level of 90%.

That stockpile could allow Iran to build as many as 10 nuclear bombs, should it decide to weaponize its program, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi warned in a recent interview with The Associated Press. He said that it doesn’t mean that Iran has such a weapon.

Iran, which consistently threatens to destroy Israel, claims that it’s not pursuing nuclear weapons, and its program is entirely peaceful. However, its 60% enriched uranium has no peaceful, civilian uses.

Talking to reporters outside the IAEA boardroom, Iran’s Ambassador to the IAEA Reza Najafi, denounced Wednesday’s resolution and said that the document describes the situation in Iran “as being quite normal and as if nothing had happened.”

He said that “under the current unprecedented security environment created by the attacks and continued threats by the aggressors, the legal, technical, and operational foundations for the normal implementation of safeguards in Iran have been destroyed.”

Najafi also said that Iran had granted the IAEA access to “all unaffected facilities,” saying that the resolution “neglects all Iran’s cooperation with the agency, even under war conditions.”

The vote “cannot help and, would be indeed counterproductive to the current situation,” he told AFP. “It further complicates the volatile situation, volatile ceasefire, and the unfinished negotiations between Iran and the US,” he said.

The resolution also “deeply regrets” Iran’s “failure to remedy” its noncompliance with its nonproliferation obligations over the past 12 months. The IAEA board found Iran officially in noncompliance with its safeguards agreement last June for the first time in 20 years – right before the US and Israel launched attacks against Iran’s nuclear sites.

Central to this issue is a long-running investigation by the UN nuclear watchdog into uranium traces detected by inspectors at various undeclared sites in Iran.

Iran has failed to provide the agency with “technically credible answers” regarding the origin and current location of this nuclear material since 2019.

Western officials suspect that the uranium traces could provide further evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003.

Wednesday’s resolution fell short of referring Iran to the UN Security Council to consider more sanctions for the country’s noncompliance, a move that last happened in February 2006 after Iran was found in noncompliance.

The resolution on Wednesday leaves that door open, however, stating that the IAEA board “will stand ready to take further action,” including by addressing the “timing and content” of a formal noncompliance report by the IAEA for consideration by the UN Security Council.

AFP and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.