Iran Nuclear Deal Faces Key Test Over IAEA Access to Long-Blocked Suspected Weapons Sites

After joint U.S.-Israeli strikes in two conflicts severely damaged Iran’s nuclear capacity, the central question in the next phase is whether Tehran will permit International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to enter sites tied to its nuclear weapons program.

Mixed messages from President Trump and Iran’s Foreign Ministry indicate the U.N. nuclear watchdog may again confront the kind of resistance from Tehran it has faced for roughly 20 years, with inspectors blocked from carrying out thorough verification at the regime’s extensive nuclear network, including subterranean facilities. For Trump, access for the IAEA could become the issue that determines whether any deal survives.

David Albright, regarded internationally as a leading authority on Iran’s nuclear weapons efforts, told News Agency that the “IAEA comes up short” when trying to obtain information and verification on the program because “Iran has not cooperated for twenty years.”

Albright, a physicist who heads the Institute for Science and International Security, said, “Iran loves to generate plans of action that can be extended,” turning the process into what he called a “pointless exercise.”

To specialists such as Albright, Tehran’s long-running ability to delay and prolong negotiations has given it time over the years to push ahead with work on a nuclear weapons device and the missile capability needed to deliver it.

That history, Albright said, “colors my view of the MOU [Memorandum of Understanding]” reached by the United States and Iran, which lays out IAEA inspection terms for Iran’s atomic weapons program.

Albright views the IAEA issue as a crucial measure of whether U.S.-Iran negotiations can succeed. “The way Iran treats the IAEA will tell us if the negotiations are meaningful,” he said, noting that Tehran’s past treatment of the agency has been deeply problematic.

The website of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared in a statement that “Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei, speaking to reporters, denied reports published by certain media outlets claiming that the Islamic Republic of Iran has invited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear facilities.”

A headline in the Islamic Republic News Agency Wednesday stated, “No plan for access to Iran’s attacked nuclear facilities without final deal, says deputy FM.” The regime-controlled outlet noted that Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi wrote on his X account that no meeting was held with Grossi in Switzerland, despite the IAEA head requesting that Iran meet with him. “There is no plan for access to the facilities that were attacked or to the nuclear materials,” Gharibabadi wrote.

On Friday in Japan, IAEA Director Rafael Grossi told reporters, “This agreement expressly indicates that the nuclear part will be supervised, monitored, by the IAEA.” He added that “a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was subscribed by the two presidents, by President Donald Trump and President Pezeshkian from Iran, and this agreement expressly indicates that the nuclear part will be supervised, monitored, by the IAEA.” 

He noted that “initial conversations” have started about inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites. “We hope to be there soon,” he said. It is unclear if Grossi’s team will examine all Iranian nuclear weapons facilities and suspected nuclear sites.

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The IAEA declined to answer a detailed News Agency press query on why previous IAEA oversight efforts failed; what would be different this time; whether inspectors can access meaningful sites or only symbolic locations; and would the IAEA focus on access to the Pickaxe Mountain facility versus sites already damaged or buried.

Albright said Israel’s government has identified ten or more sites where Iran is suspected of being involved in nuclear weapons. The IAEA spokesman declined to comment on whether their inspectors will demand to visit those sites.

Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told News Agency that “Iran should be made to come clean and allow inspections not only at declared nuclear sites — especially the ones damaged during Operation Midnight Hammer — but also at universities, military bases and other state organizations that have been used to engage in dual-use research which is applicable to the development of a nuclear weapon should there be a leadership decision to do so. Inspections on Iran’s nuclear weaponization program were not part of the original 2015 JCPOA, which was one of its weaknesses.”

The JCPOA, whose formal name is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was negotiated by former President Obama’s administration in 2015. Albright, a sharp critic of the JCPOA, said the Obama deal accepted that Iran did not cooperate and “swept it under the rug.”  Albright warned that “It is really important that the U.S. [Trump administration] not do a JCPOA.”

Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018. He said at the time the JCPOA was a “horrible one-sided deal that should never ever have been made.”

Brodsky stressed that “Any new agreement should include more robust inspection powers. Iran’s denial of inspections at the damaged nuclear facilities since June 2025 violates its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

When asked about the IAEA’s impotence with respect to intrusive sanctions on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a White House spokeswoman referred News Agency to Vice President JD Vance and Grossi’s comments.

“The Iranians have agreed to invite IAEA inspectors back into their country. That is a major milestone for the American people, and the first step in permanently denuclearize, easing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran,” Vance said on Monday. He added, “And that’s exactly what we wanted to do. That’s exactly what we asked to happen.”

President Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Despite their protestations and false statements to the contrary, coupled with the drumbeat of the Fake News, which is doing everything possible to make the U.S. Victory as small and insignificant as possible, Iran has fully and completely agreed to highest level Nuclear inspections long into the future (Infinity!!!). This will insure ‘Nuclear Honesty.’ If they did not agree to this, there would be no further negotiations! “

The Islamic Republic’s spokesman to the U.N. did not respond to a News Agency press query.

The U.S. State Department declined to comment.