IAEA can't find or inspect Iran's declared Isfahan enrichment plant

The UN nuclear watchdog says it is still locked out of a uranium-enrichment plant Iran told it about more than a year ago. In a confidential report to member states on Friday, seen by Reuters, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it is “increasingly concerned” about the Isfahan Fuel Enrichment Plant, or IFEP, which Iran declared on Jun 12, 2025. The IAEA had planned to inspect it the very next day — but the bombing campaign that started on Jun 13, 2025 made that impossible, and inspectors have not set foot there since.

The report is blunt about the blind spot: “The Agency does not know IFEP's exact location, status for safeguards purposes or whether it contains nuclear material.” The plant is believed to sit inside a tunnel network at Isfahan, according to diplomats, though a senior diplomat said its whereabouts and status remain unknown. The IAEA also said it has not been allowed to see the plant's design plans.

Isfahan is not the only site Iran has kept sealed off. According to the report, Tehran has not let inspectors return to any of its nuclear facilities struck by Israel and the United States during a 12-day campaign in June that destroyed or badly damaged Iran's other uranium enrichment plants — the core of its nuclear programme.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said in March that his agency believed a significant amount of Iran's most highly enriched uranium was sitting in the Isfahan tunnel complex. The new report presses Tehran to disclose the status of its enrichment plants and its stock of highly enriched uranium, including material close to weapons grade, and to let inspectors back into the bombed sites to account for it. “The Agency's lack of information about this nuclear material and access to facilities to verify it is a matter of serious proliferation concern,” the report said, adding it “needs to be rectified with the utmost urgency.”