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More on DG Grossi report to UN Security Council, Sunday, June 22, 2025

IAEA Director General Grossi, in his statement to the UN Security Council on Sunday, June 22, 2025, addressed the matter of his inspectors in Iran: 

        “We must return to the negotiating table and allow the IAEA inspectors, the guardians of the NPT, to go back to Iran’s nuclear sites and account for the stockpiles of uranium, including, most importantly, the 400kg enriched to 60%. Any agreement, any arrangement will have as a prerequisite the establishment of the facts on the ground. This can be done only through IAEA inspections. 

        "IAEA inspectors are in Iran, and they must do their job. This will require a cessation of hostilities so that Iran can let the teams into the sites under the necessary safety and security conditions. Any special measures by Iran to protect its nuclear materials and equipment can be done in accordance with Iran’s safeguards obligations and the Agency. This is possible.” 

Two matters here. First the return of inspectors to the bombed sites of Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow. According to the established safeguards procedure, the State, Iran, formally declares the locations and inventories of nuclear material in facilities, as well as transfers of nuclear material into or out of those facilities. IAEA inspectors then visit facilities to verify the reported information. So, in principle, the first step is for Iran to reestablish by measurement the inventories of uranium of various enrichments and conditions at the bombed facilities and report their results to IAEA. How long that will take if the facilities are totally destroyed as President Trump trumpeted is anybody’s guess. Then, the matter of inspections of the bombed facilities can be addressed between Iran and IAEA. 

Second is the matter of transfers of enriched uranium from those facilities prior to or during Israeli and U.S. bombing. This is a unique, first-of-a-kind situation. Iranian officials have told the media that material was moved. In addition, satellite photos show trucks lined up outside Fordow (and elsewhere) presumably to remove material and equipment in advance of bombing. Where did it go and how much? Presumably to new locations that have not been declared to the IAEA. 

According to the established safeguards procedure, the State provides to IAEA a DIQ (design information questionnaire) about a new facility, and IAEA performs a design information verification, to establish how it will implement safeguards. When nuclear material is transferred into the new facility, IAEA begins inspections there to verify the reported nuclear material. In this case, none of that has happened. And one can understand that Iran questions whether it should proceed with the standard procedures, which would reveal the locations of the HEU inventories that Iran was able to move from the bombed facilities. Iran will not give IAEA information about centrifuges; such information was only supplied as a provision of the JCPOA that Donald Trump proudly withdrew from. DG Grossi said: “Any special measures by Iran to protect its nuclear materials and equipment can be done in accordance with Iran’s safeguards obligations and the Agency. This is possible.” Possible, yes. But… 

And that’s where the matter of IAEA verification of Iran’s enriched uranium inventories stands today.

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