IAEA: Escalation undercuts chance for timely Iran inspections

The International Atomic Energy Agency has warned that an accelerating military posture in the region is compressing the time available to finalise practical inspection arrangements with Iran. Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi described the diplomatic window as narrowing, with operational and political obstacles accumulating.

IAEA technical proposals to enable site visits have been raised directly with Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and delegations have held follow-up consultations in Geneva. Those measures are intended to establish sequencing, verification benchmarks and limited access protocols for locations affected by prior strikes.

Complicating those talks are new satellite images that show visible construction and hardening work at sites near Natanz — notably Pickaxe Mountain — and repair activity at Natanz and Isfahan. Analysts reporting on the imagery say fresh concrete, earthmoving equipment and backfilled tunnel portals are consistent with efforts to protect infrastructure against strikes and could materially complicate rapid external inspection and evidence collection.

Timing is now the chief uncertainty: while procedural plans exist on paper, the combination of fortified facilities and heightened military movements makes quick agreement and safe operations less likely. That risks turning short-term verification into protracted negotiations.

Military signalling by the United States — including carrier task-group movements and CENTCOM aviation exercises — and a string of maritime incidents (reported downed unmanned aerial vehicles and contested encounters with commercial shipping) have raised the chance of miscalculation. Those dynamics increase the political friction around in-country access and make deconfliction and attribution harder.

On substance, Tehran has shown conditional flexibility on discrete nuclear measures such as dilution of some enriched stocks but has been explicit that defensive forces and ballistic missiles are off the table. Iranian negotiators have stressed negotiation design — agreed venue, sequencing and reciprocity — as prerequisites to deeper concessions.

Operationally the IAEA faces three immediate tasks: securing guaranteed, rapid access to specific locations; agreeing narrowly scoped inspection protocols that can function amid heightened security risks; and coordinating with multiple states to prevent operational interference during missions.

Domestic pressures inside Iran — including economic strain and internal security crackdowns — both increase incentives to seek economic relief and empower hardline constituencies reluctant to make concessions, complicating the political calculus for rapid compromises.

As a result, the agency is likely to prioritise incremental, well-defined access steps that preserve verification options even if a comprehensive package stalls. Third‑party facilitators such as Oman and Turkey remain important to process design and confidence-building, but their ability to bridge core gaps depends on fast, verifiable moves.

The combination of hardened facilities and visible military deployments raises both immediate verification costs and longer-term proliferation risks: damage to infrastructure, followed by concealment or reconstruction, would complicate any effort to account for sensitive material. For policymakers, the message is stark — unless tensions are dialled down and incident‑management tools are established quickly, the IAEA’s capacity to conduct meaningful, timely inspections will be materially constrained.