The United Nations nuclear watchdog agency is “increasingly concerned” about its lack of access to an underground Iranian uranium enrichment facility that Tehran has acknowledged exists but has refused to allow inspectors to visit, according to Reuters.
“The Agency does not know the exact location of the IFEP, nor its status for safeguards purposes, nor whether it contains nuclear material,” the International Atomic Energy Agency, cited by Reuters, said in a quarterly report to member states, referring to the Isfahan Fuel Enrichment Plant (IFEP).
The IAEA asked Iran to allow inspectors to visit the IFEP in February, but Tehran refused, telling the UN agency that “conditions resulting from acts of aggression and the persistence of threats have created a situation in which normal implementation of safeguards is legally untenable and materially impractical.”
The refusal came after the United States and Israel struck Iranian nuclear sites, including Isfahan, with a wave of missile strikes in June 2025.
The IAEA said in a September report that since then it had observed, in satellite images, “regular automobile activity around the entrance to the tunnel complex in Isfahan,” where the agency estimates some of Iran’s roughly 900-pound missiles a stockpile of highly enriched uranium would have been buried by June 2025 missile strikes.
“In light of this activity,” the IAEA said it asked Iran in February to provide access to inspectors “as soon as possible,” but Tehran continued to refuse, the nuclear watchdog agency said, citing attacks on its territory.
BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty 
The Trump administration has presented Iran’s controversial nuclear program as the main justification for the war, but it has vacillated during the conflict between suggesting Iran would voluntarily give up its remaining stockpiles, declaring the problem largely resolved.
“More than 80 percent of their nuclear industrial base is gone,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier this week, adding: “THE CRAZY ISLAMISTS IN TEHRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPONS.”
But Iran has so far agreed to nothing regarding its uranium stockpiles or its enrichment program, including new IAEA inspections. He refused to negotiate with the United States on this issue until a formal ceasefire was implemented.
On Wednesday, a senior Iranian security official insisted that Tehran “would not remove even a single particle of enriched nuclear material from the country.”
President Trump said Thursday that “we don’t need a deal with Iran,” suggesting he may be willing to leave the issue unresolved.
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