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A year after US and Israeli airstrikes knocked out key Iranian nuclear facilities, international inspectors are heading back in. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi confirmed on June 24, 2026, that nuclear inspections in Iran will proceed following an interim peace accord between Washington and Tehran. The modalities and timelines, he noted, are still being worked out.
What Grossi said, and what Iran said back
The confirmation from Grossi is the most concrete signal yet that some form of resumed oversight is coming. But Iran’s Foreign Ministry moved quickly to push back on the framing, rejecting claims that Tehran had agreed to any new commitments, particularly around access to sites damaged in the June 2025 strikes.
Iran’s position, stated plainly: their existing obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty cover what inspectors can see. Bombed facilities, in Tehran’s view, do not require additional protocols beyond standard NPT safeguards.
US officials, including President Trump and Vice President Vance, have publicly claimed there is a firm agreement on inspections. Iran has rejected those characterizations. So the two sides have, in effect, announced the same deal with incompatible descriptions of what the deal actually says.
How we got here: a year with no eyes on Iran’s program
The gap in oversight began in June 2025, when the US and Israel carried out military strikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure. Iran responded by suspending cooperation with the IAEA and withdrawing inspectors, cutting off the international community’s primary window into the program.
What inspectors walked away from was not nothing. The IAEA currently has approximately 400 kg of uranium enriched to 60% U-235 under safeguards. To put that in context, weapons-grade enrichment sits at 90% U-235. Sixty percent is not weapons-grade, but it is well beyond what any civilian nuclear program requires, and it is close enough to weapons-grade that the enrichment gap can be closed relatively quickly with the right centrifuge configuration.
Post-strike conditions at damaged facilities raise serious questions about the physical integrity of stored nuclear material. Whether that 400 kg stockpile remains fully accounted for, and whether it is safely contained, is exactly what inspectors need to verify on the ground.
Partial resumption of inspections did occur at unaffected sites. The Bushehr nuclear power plant, which was not targeted in the 2025 strikes, saw some IAEA activity resume after the withdrawal. But Bushehr is a power reactor, not the enrichment or weapons-relevant infrastructure that the IAEA and Western governments are most focused on.
What this means for the broader nuclear standoff
Iran has also denied that any meetings between its officials and Grossi took place regarding inspections of damaged facilities. That denial, if accurate, raises questions about the evidentiary basis for US officials’ confidence that a comprehensive inspection agreement exists.
The IAEA’s ability to verify Iran’s nuclear stockpiles and assess post-strike material safety is the foundational requirement for any durable diplomatic settlement. Without credible verification, every other element of an agreement rests on assumptions that cannot be tested.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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