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Having crushed Iran’s nuclear capabilities during two wars in joint attacks with Israel, the latest and most important chapter in what will be a peace is whether the regime will allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors access to its nuclear weapons facilities.
Conflicting statements and reports from President Trump and Iran’s Foreign Ministry suggest that the U.N. IAEA will face the same intransigence from Tehran that it has experienced for two decades in preventing its inspectors from conducting robust verifications of the clerical regime’s vast nuclear facilities, including underground compounds. The IAEA’s sticking point could be a deal-breaker for President Trump.
David Albright, widely considered one of the world’s leading experts on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, told Fox News Digital that “the IAEA is falling short” in its efforts to secure information and verification about Iran’s nuclear weapons program because “Iran has not cooperated for twenty years.”
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Unidentified International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors at the nuclear research center in Natanz on January 20, 2014. (Kazem Ghane/IRNA/AFP via Getty Images)
Albright, a physicist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said, “Iran likes to formulate action plans that can be scaled up” and the process becomes a “futile exercise.”
For Iran experts like Albright, Iran’s skill in the art of procrastination has allowed it to pursue negotiations for decades while pursuing its work on a nuclear weapons device and the missile system to deliver it.
As a result, Albright said, “It colors my view of the MOU [Memorandum of Understanding]“The United States and Iran agreed to codify IAEA inspections of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Albright sees the IAEA as an important test for the success of US-Iran talks. “The way Iran treats the IAEA will tell us whether negotiations are worthwhile,” he said, adding that Tehran’s regime has treated the IAEA badly in the past.
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President Donald Trump (C) addresses the media with United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer (L), US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (2nd), US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (2nd) and US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant (R) during a closing press conference at the G7 summit in Evian, eastern France. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
The website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran announced in a statement that “Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai, speaking to journalists, refuted reports published by some media outlets claiming that the Islamic Republic of Iran has invited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear facilities.”
“Deputy FM says Iran has no plans to cede access to attacked nuclear facilities without final deal,” said a headline from the Islamic Republic News Agency on Wednesday. The regime-controlled outlet noted that Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi wrote on his X account that despite the IAEA chief’s request that Iran meet with him, no meeting took place with Grossi in Switzerland. “There is no plan for access to the facilities that were attacked or to the nuclear material,” Gharibabadi wrote.
“This agreement clearly indicates that the nuclear part will be supervised, monitored by the IAEA,” IAEA Director Rafael Grossi told reporters in Japan on Friday. He said that “a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed by both presidents, President Donald Trump and President Pezeshkian of Iran, and that agreement clearly indicates that the nuclear part will be supervised, monitored by the IAEA.”
He said “initial discussions” have begun about inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites. “We hope to get there soon,” he said. It is unclear whether Grossi’s team will investigate all Iranian nuclear weapons facilities and suspected nuclear sites.
The IAEA declined to answer a detailed question from Fox News Digital Press about why previous IAEA inspection efforts failed; What will be different this time; whether inspectors can access meaningful sites or merely symbolic locations; And whether the IAEA will focus on access to the Pickaxe Mountain facility rather than already damaged or buried sites.
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IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi meets Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, then Foreign Minister of Iran, in Tehran, Iran on May 6, 2024. (Majid Asgharipur/WANA)
Albright said the Israeli government has identified ten or more locations where Iran is suspected of being involved in nuclear weapons. An IAEA spokesman declined to comment on whether its inspectors would seek to visit those sites.
Jason Brodsky, policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told Fox News Digital that “Iran should come clean and allow inspections not only at declared nuclear sites – particularly those 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 that applies to nuclear weapon development, subject to the leadership’s decision to do so.” Inspections on Iran’s nuclear weapons 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 the administration of former President Obama in 2015. Albright, a sharp critic of the JCPOA, said the Obama agreement acknowledged that Iran did not cooperate and “suppressed it.” Albright warned that “it’s really important that the U.S. [Trump administration] Don’t do JCPOA.”
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Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018. He said at the time that the JCPOA was a “terrible one-sided deal that should never have been made.”
Brodsky stressed that “Any new agreement must include more robust inspection powers. Iran’s refusal to inspect damaged nuclear facilities from June 2025 is a violation of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
Asked about the IAEA’s impotence regarding intrusive sanctions on Iran’s nuclear facilities, a White House spokesperson referred Vice President J.D. Vance and Grossi’s comments to Fox News Digital.
US Vice President JD Vance speaks to members of the media after high-level talks between the US and Iran aimed at pursuing an agreement to end the Middle East conflict at the Lake Lucerne Summit near Lake Lucerne, Switzerland on June 22, 2026. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
“The Iranians have agreed to invite IAEA inspectors back to their country. This is a major milestone for the American people, and the first step toward permanently disarming, decommissioning, or permanently eliminating the nuclear weapons program in Iran,” Vance said Monday. He added, “And that’s what we wanted to do. That’s exactly what we asked to do.”
President Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Despite his protests and false statements to the contrary, along with the drumbeat of Fake News, which is doing everything possible to make the American victory seem as small and insignificant as possible, Iran has fully agreed to the highest level of nuclear inspections in the future (infinite!!!). This will ensure ‘nuclear integrity’. If they do not agree to this there will be no further negotiations!”
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The Islamic Republic’s spokesman at the United Nations did not respond to a Fox News Digital press query.
The US State Department declined to comment.
