IAEA’s Grossi urges diplomacy, inspections with Iran
Shafaq News- Vienna
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi on Monday urged Iran to resume cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, warning that the agency has carried out no in-field verification in the country for more than six months apart from an inspection of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in June.
Opening the IAEA’s 70th General Conference in Vienna, Grossi said the agency also lacks information about previously declared nuclear material and access to facilities needed to verify it, describing the situation as a matter of “serious proliferation concern” requiring urgent attention.
Today we begin the 70th #IAEAGC in Vienna.Seven decades after our first General Conference, that “common spirit of dedication” remains at the heart of what we do, even during these fractured times. We see it in cancer specialists sharing expertise across borders, in… pic.twitter.com/c6CbUITIiO
— Rafael Mariano Grossi (@rafaelmgrossi) September 14, 2026
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright separately accused Iran of not being transparent with the IAEA and called on Tehran to cooperate fully with the agency.
Iran also protested on Monday after Atomic Energy Organization of Iran chief Mohammad Eslami was prevented from attending the General Conference. Austria’s Ambassador Christian Ebner told the conference that his government had requested an exemption from Eslami’s UN travel ban, but the UN sanctions committee rejected it after a US objection. Also speaking at the conference, Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, said the decision reflected a “political act” and further politicization of the organization.
On September 9, the IAEA Board of Governors reported Iran to the UN Security Council for the first time in 20 years over what diplomats described as Tehran’s failure to meet its nuclear non-proliferation obligations. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi rejected the move, arguing that attacks on Iran’s safeguarded nuclear facilities had disrupted routine verification and that the disruption was then being used as a pretext for the IAEA resolution.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei later accused Grossi of allowing IAEA technical reporting to become part of the political justification for military action against Iran, particularly after Grossi stated that inspectors had still been unable to access the Pickaxe Mountain tunnel complex near the damaged Natanz enrichment site.
