Iran tells UN nuclear watchdog inspections cannot resume while Trump threatens it, as the agency says it cannot find the Isfahan enrichment plant

Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency that talks on resuming inspections cannot go ahead while it is under threat of attack, according to a confidential agency report circulated to member states on Friday, November 13. The same report says the watchdog still cannot verify Iran’s near-weapons-grade uranium, more than a year after US and Israeli bombing, and cannot say where one underground enrichment plant is.

What the report says

Iran’s message, sent this month, points to “persistent, explicit, and public threats by the President of the United States of America”, particularly against its nuclear facilities. Tehran said the matter would not be settled “until the root causes of the present situation are addressed”, while repeating its “firm commitment to resume full implementation of its safeguards obligations”.

The agency’s reply is blunt. It calls the lack of information “a matter of proliferation concern” that “needs to be rectified with the utmost urgency”, and says it is “fully prepared to resume its safeguards activities in Iran at short notice”. It urges Iran to consider “technical and gradual measures” that would let inspectors back in. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has pressed the same idea of limited steps.

The numbers explain the worry. Iran holds 440.9 kg of uranium enriched up to 60%, a short technical step from the 90% used in weapons. Grossi said last year that this amount could in theory yield as many as 10 bombs, though that does not mean Iran has one. IAEA guidelines call for material like this to be verified monthly. The agency has not been able to do so since the June 2025 war.

The Isfahan plant nobody has seen

The report singles out the Isfahan Fuel Enrichment Plant, an underground site Iran first declared in June 2025, just before the strikes began. Inspectors had to cancel a planned visit on the day the attacks started. The agency says it does not know the plant’s exact location or whether it holds nuclear material, and it expresses “increasing concern”. The report does not say enrichment is taking place there.

The only site inspected since June 2025 is the Bushehr power plant, visited on September 12 to 15. Its reactor runs on Russian uranium enriched to 4.5%. Inspectors have had no access to the sites hit in the 12-day war.

Iran also objected, in its letter, to a recent US offer of up to $20 million for information on its nuclear programme, saying the agency’s work must stay confidential and that nuclear information must not be misused. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei has said Iran remains committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and blames the US and Israeli attacks for limiting cooperation. Iran says its programme is peaceful; the IAEA and Western governments say it ran an organised weapons programme until 2003.

How we got here

The IAEA withdrew its inspectors for safety reasons after the June 2025 strikes, and Iran later passed a law suspending cooperation. Further US and Israeli strikes began on February 28, 2026, and killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. On September 9 the IAEA Board of Governors voted 23 to 3 to report Iran to the UN Security Council for failing its safeguards obligations, with Russia, China and Niger opposed and eight states abstaining. Iran’s ambassador Reza Najafi called the resolution “dangerous and entirely counterproductive” and said access to the bombed sites was “materially impossible”. President Masoud Pezeshkian has said Iran would accept verification, but only as part of a diplomatic agreement.

From the bombing to the stalled talks

1. June 2025US and Israeli strikes hit Iran's nuclear sites; inspectors withdraw.
2. February 28, 2026New strikes begin and Khamenei is killed.
3. September 9, 2026IAEA Board refers Iran to the UN Security Council by 23 votes to 3.
4. September 12-15, 2026Inspectors visit Bushehr, the only site seen since June 2025.
5. November 13, 2026Report says inspection talks cannot resume under threat.

The threats Iran cites

The report lands in the middle of a hard week. On Thursday, November 12, Trump was asked in a radio interview what would follow if Iran killed a senior American official; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has reportedly been moved to a military base over threats. Trump replied: “They will not exist very long any longer.” The same day he said Gulf states had asked him to hold off on further strikes. On November 8 he said renewed strikes were “highly unlikely” if a deal is signed while naming 38 bridges he could bring down.

Iran denies plotting to kill US officials. On Friday Bessent said he was not afraid and called Iran “a dangerous cornered animal”. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they destroyed a US early-warning radar in Bahrain; US Central Command denied any damage and said it shot down two drones.

Why it matters

Inspection access is the one independent check on whether Iran can still build a weapon. Without it, the world depends on declarations by Tehran and on intelligence from governments that are parties to the war. That is also what Washington cites when it argues for pressure, and what Tehran cites when it says talks must come first. For India, which depends on Gulf crude moving through Hormuz, a nuclear standoff that blocks a deal keeps the shipping risk in place, as our report on the Gulf’s place in India’s crude supply shows.

What happens next

No date has been set for inspectors to return, and Iran’s terms, an end to threats first, are ones Washington has not accepted. Vice President JD Vance has written to Iran’s security council secretary Mohsen Rezaei asking for a meeting, but none is scheduled. Because the Security Council referral stands and China and Russia can veto action there, the next test is whether Iran accepts the “technical and gradual measures” the agency has offered, or whether its parliament moves on the proposals some lawmakers have made to leave the NPT.