CaliToday (17/11/2025): Tehran's Foreign Minister spins military setback as transparency, but the UN nuclear watchdog says it has been denied access to bombed sites for five months and its verification is "long overdue."
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| Satellite image of Iran's Fordow nuclear facility (Reuters). |
In the Iranian government's clearest admission to date, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged Sunday that the nation's uranium enrichment program has been completely halted following devastating military strikes by Israel and the United States on its nuclear facilities.
However, the admission of a military defeat is being overshadowed by a new, escalating crisis. A United Nations nuclear watchdog report issued last week warns that it has been blinded for five months, completely blocked from inspecting the attacked sites, and that Iran's critical stockpile of 60% enriched uranium material near weapons-grade is now "long overdue" for verification.
Speaking at a rare, state-sanctioned media conference in Tehran for which Iran granted 3-day visas to reporters from AP, major British outlets, and others Araghchi attempted to frame the situation as one of transparency.
"There is no secret nuclear enrichment in Iran. All our facilities are under IAEA safeguards and supervision," Araghchi stated. He then delivered the critical admission: "There is currently no enrichment because our enrichment facilities were attacked."
The statement confirms that the coordinated strikes in June, which were widely reported but never officially detailed by Israel or the US, were successful in crippling Iran's enrichment capacity.
The IAEA Verification Crisis
While Araghchi projected compliance, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna is painting a direly different picture.
A blistering report from the UN agency last week stated that Iran continues to refuse all access to inspectors for the seven nuclear sites damaged in the June attacks. Furthermore, of the 13 "unaffected" facilities, inspectors have only been granted access to a handful.
The IAEA's primary concern is the inventory of uranium enriched to 60% purity a level alarmingly close to the 90% threshold required for a nuclear weapon. IAEA procedures require a monthly verification of this material.
"The IAEA's inability to access this nuclear material in Iran for the past five months means its verification is long overdue," the agency's report stated. "It is of paramount importance that we are able to verify the previously declared nuclear material in Iran as soon as possible to allay concerns."
A "No Longer Valid" Agreement
The standoff invalidates a temporary deal brokered in Cairo in September, which was meant to restore full access for inspectors.
According to the IAEA, "limited progress" was made before Iran declared the agreement "no longer valid."
This has left the international community in the dark. For five months, the IAEA has been unable to confirm the location or quantity of Iran's most dangerous nuclear material. The strikes, while halting enrichment, have also created a "black box," leaving Western intelligence to question:
How much 60% enriched uranium did Iran possess before the attacks?
Was that material destroyed in the strikes?
Or was that stockpile successfully moved to a new, secret, and hardened location before the attacks, with Iran now using the damaged sites as a shield to block verification?
As of today, the world's nuclear watchdog has no answers, and Iran is using its new "non-enrichment" status a status forced upon it by military action as its official, and final, word.