UN nuclear watchdog lacks location of Iran’s announced plant

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says it does not know the precise location of Iran’s announced Isfahan Fuel Enrichment Plant or whether it contains nuclear material. Iran has not allowed the UN watchdog to inspect it, the agency said in a report circulated on 13 November.

Iran announced the plant on 12 June 2025, shortly after an IAEA resolution said the country had failed to meet its nuclear safeguards obligations. Iran initially agreed to an inspection, but the visit was canceled after Israel launched attacks the following day; the United States joined the strikes later that month.

The new report did not establish that uranium enrichment is taking place at the plant. The IAEA calls the missing information and access a proliferation concern: its inspections are intended to check that nuclear material is not diverted toward weapons, but without access it cannot independently establish what is happening at facilities such as Isfahan.

A wider gap in inspections

The IAEA withdrew inspectors for safety reasons after the bombing, and Iran later passed a law suspending cooperation with the agency. Before the June 2025 strikes, Iran had accumulated an estimated 441 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, close to weapons grade. The agency has since been unable to verify the stockpile’s status.

The wider Isfahan nuclear complex suffered extensive damage in US and Israeli strikes, particularly above ground. The IAEA believes much of Iran’s highly enriched uranium was stored there, but the condition of the complex’s underground facilities remains unclear. That damage does not establish the condition of the separately announced, uninspected enrichment plant.

On 10 November, Al Jazeera said the Bushehr nuclear power plant was the only facility still accessible to the IAEA. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed inspections there days earlier. Unlike the attacked facilities, the plant had not been directly bombed.

Conditions for renewed access

Baghaei said Iran remained committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but blamed US and Israeli attacks for limiting cooperation. The treaty recognizes peaceful nuclear use while requiring parties not to acquire nuclear weapons and to accept safeguards and information sharing. Iran says its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi urged Iran to consider limited technical measures that could enable visits and restore routine monitoring. The agency said it was ready to resume safeguards work at short notice. Iran told the agency that inspection discussions could not resume amid public US threats of further attacks and that the causes of the situation and requirements for normal safeguards had to be addressed.

A 2025 Cairo agreement envisaged access to all Iranian facilities with case-by-case permission from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, but was never enforced. Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group said a preliminary deal could potentially allow limited, phased inspections on that basis; he said fuller transparency would require a broader bargain on enrichment, stockpiles and sanctions relief.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator and visiting researcher at Princeton University, said Iran feared inspection information could be shared with the US and Israel for use in future attacks. He said inspections of bombed sites were unlikely without a comprehensive agreement addressing security and nuclear issues.