IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi via Flickr

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday that inspectors will return to Iran’s uranium enrichment sites, pushing back against Tehran’s claim that bombed facilities are off-limits under the new US-Iran interim deal.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi made the comments during a visit to Japan, where he spoke at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. His remarks were the clearest signal yet that the nuclear watchdog expects access to Iran’s most sensitive sites.

The issue has quickly become the first major test of the memorandum of understanding signed by President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The agreement ended open hostilities and opened a 60-day window to resolve the biggest unresolved questions—above all, the future of Iran’s nuclear program.

“I can understand political statements, they are part of the reality,” Grossi told journalists. But he said the key fact is that both presidents signed a memorandum that explicitly gives the IAEA a role.

The accord, Grossi said, states “in all letters” that nuclear activities involving nuclear-material facilities will be supervised by the IAEA. He then made the practical implication impossible to miss.

“Obviously, to do that, we will have to inspect,” Grossi said. “Whether this happens the day after tomorrow or in one week or in 10 days, it’s important, but not essential. This is going to happen.”

Grossi’s statement aims at cutting through the diplomatic fog surrounding the deal. The Trump administration has said Iran agreed to allow inspections, while Tehran has publicly denied that inspectors are scheduled to examine nuclear sites struck by the United States and Israel.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Tuesday that UN inspectors were not expected to visit those damaged sites. His remarks contradicted earlier comments from US Vice President JD Vance, who said inspections were part of the arrangement.

The dispute, for those critical of the globalist diplomatic class, shows why paper agreements with hostile regimes are never enough. If Iran gets sanctions relief, access to money and international legitimacy, verification cannot be left to political spin.

Grossi has made that point before. At an April press conference in Seoul, he warned that without IAEA inspectors, negotiators would not have an agreement—they would have only “an illusion of an agreement.”

That warning now hangs over the entire deal. The Trump administration may have produced a ceasefire and a negotiating framework, but the deal’s credibility will depend on whether Tehran actually opens the doors.

Since Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran in June 2025, the IAEA has been blocked from visiting enrichment sites. Those are the facilities where Iran is believed to hold enough highly enriched uranium to potentially build several nuclear weapons if it chose to race toward a bomb.

Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful. But it remains the only country in the world known to have enriched uranium up to 60 percent purity without a declared weapons program.

The IAEA has been allowed into some unaffected facilities, including the Bushehr nuclear power plant. But without access to enrichment sites, the agency says it cannot verify the status of Iran’s uranium stockpile or inspect the centrifuge cascades used to enrich it.

Both Iran and the IAEA have said Tehran has not been enriching uranium recently. Still, non-proliferation experts remain worried that Iran may be moving material to undeclared locations.

Grossi told NHK that the agency’s top priority is confirming where Iran’s highly enriched uranium is located. He said the IAEA has an idea of where the material could be, but emphasized that Iran must tell inspectors where it is.

The agency has also said satellite imagery showed regular vehicle movement around the entrance to an underground tunnel complex at Isfahan. Uranium enriched to 20 percent and 60 percent is believed to have been stored there.

That makes Isfahan one of the most important locations in the dispute. If material was moved, damaged, hidden or dispersed, inspectors will have to establish what remains and where it went.

Grossi said damaged storage facilities may require technical work before inspectors can reach nuclear material. The agency is expected to speak with Iranian officials soon to determine dates, access rules and other inspection details.

He also stressed that the IAEA is an independent body and will carry out inspections on its own. If Iran wants to invite the United States or other observers, Grossi said, that is a separate matter, but the agency does not need outside supervision.

Under the interim framework, Iran reaffirmed that it would never produce nuclear weapons. The United States committed to sanctions relief and broader economic support, while tying those benefits to nuclear compliance.

That is where the central bargain becomes clear. Iran wants relief from pressure, but the West cannot responsibly provide relief without verification.

The deal also calls for Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile to be downblended. That process is central because 60 percent uranium is above ordinary civilian levels and close enough to weapons-grade material to alarm security experts.

The ceasefire is already under strain beyond the nuclear file.

Violence flared again in Lebanon on Tuesday, though it did not escalate into a wider confrontation. Iran has stated that any durable settlement must also address Lebanon, complicating both the nuclear track and the broader peace process.

Grossi’s message, for now, is the strongest anchor in a deal already clouded by competing statements.

The stakes could not be higher. And a real settlement requires the highest of standards: open the sites, locate the uranium, inspect the centrifuges and verify compliance.

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