IAEA has been completely blind to Iran’s nuclear program for over a year, Rafael Grossi says

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is completely blind regarding Iran's nuclear program and has been since at least June 2025, the agency's Director-General Rafael Grossi told its Board of Governors on Monday.

Grossi said, "As stated in the report...the Agency has neither received information from Iran regarding the status of its declared nuclear material or facilities nor had access to any of those facilities to conduct in-field verification activities. Therefore, the Agency was unable to discharge its safeguards responsibilities under the NPT Safeguards Agreement at declared nuclear facilities in Iran."

"Consequently, we were not able to verify their status for safeguards purposes and the associated nuclear material, and as a result I am also unable to report in relation to the implementation by Iran of relevant provisions of the UN Security Council resolutions or the Board’s resolutions of November last year and June this year," he continued.

Further, he said, "It is more than a year since the Agency lost continuity of knowledge in relation to the previously declared inventories of LEU and HEU enriched up to 60% U-235 at the declared nuclear facilities affected by the military attacks of June 2025," referring to Israel's war with Iran last year.

Next, he noted, "The Agency’s lack of information about these facilities and associated nuclear material and our inability to conduct verification activities at these facilities is a matter of serious proliferation concern. The situation needs to be rectified with the utmost urgency."

Moreover, Grossi said, he called on Iran "to engage with the Agency constructively in order to make possible the full and effective implementation of Agency safeguards in Iran and to fulfill its responsibilities under the NPT Safeguards Agreement."

"A return to diplomacy and negotiations aimed at finding a solution to issues related to Iran’s nuclear program is imperative, and the Agency stands ready to support such efforts. The situation regarding Iran’s nuclear program has implications for the global non-proliferation regime," he warned.

Iran refuses access to IAEA inspectors since joint Israel-US attacks

Since Israel and the US struck Iran in June 2025, Tehran has refused access to the IAEA to any of its nuclear facilities, claiming that the agency would pass on classified information to those who attacked it.

While Grossi at points has said that solving nuclear issues by the use of force is less productive than diplomacy, the Islamic regime has viewed his stance on American and Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear program in 2025-2026 as too mild, and taken offense that he has not condemned the attacks more forcefully.

However, while Grossi has complained that Iran has cut off IAEA access almost completely in 2025-2026 - with the exception of a visit to the Bushehr nuclear facility, which has never presented any threat - in fact, the Islamic Republic started to significantly limit IAEA inspector access as early as 2021.

As early as November 2021, Grossi cited the Islamic Republic's violation of a supposed deal from September 12, 2021, to renew IAEA access to the critical Karaj nuclear site. Because Tehran reneged on the deal, Grossi said, "the lack of access to the Karaj workshop has meant that the restoration of surveillance and monitoring at all of Iran’s facilities and locations in relation to the JCPOA could not be completed. This is seriously affecting the Agency’s ability to restore continuity of knowledge at the workshop, which has been widely recognized as essential in relation to a return to the JCPOA" 2015 nuclear deal.

Iran’s IAEA obstruction predates the 2025 war with Israel

Going back further in time, Iran has accused the US of being the first to violate the 2015 deal when first-term US President Donald Trump pulled out of that deal in May 2018.

However, when Trump pulled out, he noted that the Mossad had provided tens of thousands of files of evidence of Iranian lying and cheating relating to the deal when it seized Iran's nuclear archives in January 2018.

Although Iran was certainly complying with some significant aspects of the deal, the archives proved that the regime was also systematically seeking to hide the weapons aspects of the nuclear program from the IAEA and the West.

Currently, neither Iran nor the US is pushing for IAEA involvement until they resolve their other ongoing standoff over the Straits of Hormuz.

Israel remains concerned that whatever is left of Iran's nuclear program after the 2025-2026 strikes has not yet been closed down as is not being overseen by IAEA inspectors.