IAEA Director General Calls for Iran to Resume Nuclear Cooperation With Inspectors

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi, opening the agency's 70th General Conference in Vienna on Monday, September 14, 2026 (23 Shahrivar 1405), called on Iran to resume cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog. According to Shafaq News, Grossi warned that the agency has carried out no in field verification in Iran for more than six months, apart from an inspection of the Bushehr nuclear plant in June, and still lacks information about previously declared nuclear material and access to facilities needed for verification, a situation he described as a matter of serious proliferation concern.

Per the same report, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright separately accused Iran of lacking transparency with the agency and called for Tehran's full cooperation. Iran protested on Monday after Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, was barred from attending the conference; the UN sanctions committee rejected Austria's request for an exemption from Eslami's travel ban after a US objection. Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Reza Najafi, called the decision a political act. The remarks came five days after the IAEA Board of Governors, on September 9 (18 Shahrivar), referred Iran's nuclear file to the UN Security Council for the first time in 20 years, a development that, alongside global oil prices, remains one of the main factors shaping perceived risk in Iran's currency and gold markets.