The agreement between Iran and the United States is intended to pave the way for international oversight of Iran’s nuclear program. Specialists say that, technically, full inspections can be carried out, but political uncertainty remains.
Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has expressed confidence that the agency will soon resume inspections at Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to him, this is envisaged in the framework agreement recently reached between the US and Iran, although the exact timing remains unclear.
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“But it will happen. Whether it happens the day after tomorrow, next week or in ten days, that is an important matter, but not an essential one.”
Iranian authorities, meanwhile, have taken a noticeably more cautious position. Deputy Foreign Minister Kasem Gharibabadi has said that the issue of international inspections and access to the struck nuclear facilities can only be addressed within the framework of a final agreement with the US and after progress is made on sanctions relief.
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva has also stressed that Tehran has not yet given approval for the return of IAEA inspectors.
Experts emphasize that, from a technical standpoint, a full inspection system is achievable, but the greatest difficulties are political.
Radiochemist Georg Steinhauser of the Vienna University of Technology told DW that uranium enrichment is carried out in large industrial structures that are easy to identify. According to him, it is hard to imagine someone secretly building an atomic bomb in a basement and then, during an inspection, showing inspectors only the ground floor.
The uranium enrichment process is extremely complex from both a technical and industrial standpoint, as it requires giant facilities and thousands of centrifuges. Precisely for this reason, such a program can be kept under relatively good observation.
Political scientist Hessam Habibi Doroh of the Institute for Peacekeeping and Conflict Management (IFK) in Vienna also sees the non-binding statement of intentions between Iran and the US as a positive development. He told DW that the return to the center of the debate in Iran of a willingness for inspections and greater transparency is an encouraging element.
However, he points out that political reservations remain strong. According to him, a law passed by the Iranian parliament has significantly limited cooperation with the IAEA, while there are currently influential voices in parliament opposing broad inspections.
According to the IAEA, the main problem at the moment is not a lack of technical capacity. Since the US attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, the agency has been unable to inspect any of the main uranium enrichment plants.
For now, monitoring relies mainly on satellite imagery. As a result, the IAEA cannot confirm whether Iran has halted uranium enrichment. The agency also does not have reliable data on the location of existing uranium stockpiles or on the number of centrifuges that continue to operate.
IAEA data show that Iran still possesses around 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to approximately 60 percent. According to experts, this quantity, if further enriched to 90 percent, could be enough to produce several nuclear weapons.
Tehran rejects claims that it aims to build nuclear weapons and insists that its nuclear program is exclusively for civilian purposes.
For Steinhauser, the key point is not whether monitoring can be carried out technically, but how broad the permitted access will be. He explains that if Iran allows full access to nuclear facilities, then it can be determined with a high degree of certainty whether a state is pursuing a civilian or military program.
The main concern remains the possibility that not all facilities will be declared or opened for inspection.
Habibi Doroh also believes that full monitoring would be possible, but that this would require a return to an agreement with the US similar to the 2015 deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
That agreement, reached with the mediation of European countries, gave the IAEA broad inspection powers and for a long time was regarded as the most advanced system in the world for monitoring a national nuclear program. US President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 during his first term.
“If similar control and monitoring mechanisms were restored, comprehensive oversight would be possible,” Habibi Doroh says. But according to him, it is not clear whether Tehran’s political leadership is still willing to make such concessions.
In some political and security circles, there is open discussion of whether Iran, in the face of recent military conflicts, should expand rather than limit its nuclear options.
The authors of a recent analysis assess that the IAEA has “practically lost control over the Iranian nuclear program.” According to them, the agency is not able to reliably verify the amount of uranium, its location or the condition of Iran’s enrichment facilities.
At the same time, experts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warn against underestimating Iran’s technical capabilities after the attacks. Although large parts of the known infrastructure have been damaged, they say that later reconstruction or the transfer of some activities to smaller, hidden facilities cannot be ruled out.
“An industrial uranium enrichment facility is very difficult to hide,” says Georg Steinhauser. According to him, these sites are large, technically complex and leave unavoidable traces for inspectors on the ground.
This remains true even in cases where an attempt is made to conceal part of the program. Consequently, whether the international community will be able to follow these traces again in the future will depend less on the inspectors’ capabilities and more on Iran’s political willingness to allow their oversight. /DW
