IAEA Urges Iran to Restore Access to Verify Previously Declared 60% Enriched Uranium

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi urged Iran on Tuesday to give the U.N. nuclear watchdog the access it says it needs to verify previously declared nuclear material, including a stockpile last estimated at 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60%, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Ajansı. The central issue is not a newly measured stockpile, but that the IAEA says it still cannot verify where that material is now or in what condition it is in.

AA reported that Grossi told the U.N. Security Council, “One area of particular concern is Iran’s previously declared nuclear material, which includes 440kg of High Enriched Uranium.” But the figure he referenced is the IAEA’s last pre-access-loss estimate, not a current measurement.

In its June 2026 director-general report, the IAEA said that as of June 13, 2025, Iran had accumulated 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60% U-235 in the form of UF6, or uranium hexafluoride gas, a compound used in the enrichment process. The agency said it had verified 432.9 kilograms of that total before access was lost.

That verification gap began after military attacks on several Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025. The IAEA said it halted in-field verification work and withdrew all inspectors from Iran by the end of that month for safety reasons. Since then, the agency has said its inspectors have been ready to return, but Iran has not provided the information and access needed to resume verification of previously declared nuclear material.

The consequence, the IAEA said in the June report, is that it “has lost continuity of knowledge” over previously declared nuclear material at facilities affected by the June 2025 attacks. It added that the loss was “a matter of proliferation concern and of compliance with the NPT Safeguards Agreement,” referring to the inspection obligations Iran has under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The agency says it therefore cannot verify the current size, composition or whereabouts of the stockpile it last accounted for in mid-June 2025.

The enrichment level is a key part of why the material is treated as especially sensitive. Uranium enriched to 60% U-235 is considered highly enriched uranium. It is far above the levels typically used for civilian power generation and much closer to weapons-grade material, making close accounting and inspection especially important for international safeguards.

Iran’s position, as recorded by the IAEA, is that the security conditions after the attacks made the “normal implementation of safeguards” impracticable. Tehran has also linked broader cooperation with the agency to political and negotiating conditions.

There has been only a limited exception to the broader inspection freeze. The IAEA said the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant remained accessible for restricted verification work, including an inspection and design information verification visit on June 1-3, 2026. The agency did not present that access as a broader restoration of monitoring elsewhere.

Grossi’s message to the Security Council, as reported by AA, underscored a dispute centered on access and verification rather than on a fresh accounting of Iran’s enriched uranium. The last IAEA figure for the 60% stockpile dates to June 13, 2025. What the agency says it lacks today is the ability to independently confirm what happened to that material after inspectors left later that month.