Iran and the Gulf → International Atomic Energy Agency — Iran safeguards

The parties

• Iran and the Gulf member of International Atomic Energy Agency — Iran safeguards
• International Atomic Energy Agency — Iran safeguards counts as a member Iran and the Gulf

A directional arrangement: the two parties do not hold the same position in it. Authored once and read from both ends.

Status

Suspended

Formally or effectively suspended by at least one party, without having been ended.

Last material change: 2026-02-28.

What the arrangement covers

Categories the arrangement is documented to include. Not a measure: a relationship covering more of them is described in more detail, not held more firmly.

Summary

The legal obligation has not lapsed and the verification has. Iran's comprehensive safeguards agreement with the Agency remains in force as an instrument, but implementation collapsed in stages: verification was paused for safety during the June 2025 strikes, inspectors were withdrawn at the end of that month, Iranian legislation suspending cooperation entered into force on 2 July 2025, and on 28 February 2026 — the opening day of the current war — the Agency stopped conducting verification activities in Iran altogether. Access is denied to twenty declared nuclear sites and one location outside facilities. The single exception is Bushehr, where refuelling oversight continued and an inspection and design information verification were carried out on 1–3 June 2026. In its 4 June 2026 reporting the Agency states, in itemised terms, that it cannot verify whether Iran has suspended enrichment-related activities including research and development, whether it has suspended reprocessing, the size of its uranium stockpile, whether it has suspended work on heavy-water projects, or its inventories of centrifuges and related equipment. The Board of Governors adopted a resolution urging Iranian cooperation on 10 June 2026. No inspection beyond Bushehr had been reported at this module's research cutoff.

Why it matters

Every confident public statement about Iran's nuclear programme made since February 2026 — in either direction, by any party — rests on something other than verification, because verification is not available. That is the fact this record exists to hold. It is also the reason the module publishes no programme status, no inventory, no timeline and no assessment of proximity to a weapon: the absence of verification is the finding, and converting it into a status would manufacture exactly the certainty the situation lacks.

Agreements

• Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (INFCIRC/214), in force since 15 May 1974 · signed 1974-05-15

  The instrument itself has not been terminated. This record's suspended status describes implementation, not the legal obligation, and the two are deliberately not collapsed.

• Iranian legislation suspending cooperation with the Agency · signed 2025-07-02

  Brought into force after the June 2025 strikes; the legal instrument on the Iranian side behind the loss of access.

• Grossi–Araghchi understanding on practical modalities to resume inspections · signed 2025-09 · ended 2026-02-28

  AN UNDERTAKING THAT DID NOT PRODUCE INSPECTIONS. It is recorded because the distinction between an agreement to restore access and access actually restored is the central design point of this module's verification observable, and this file already contains one instance of the first without the second.

Related events

• The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action 14 Jul 2015

  Diplomatic · Weapons deliveries · Sanctions

• The twelve-day war between Israel, the United States and Iran 13 – 24 Jun 2025

  Military · Weapons deliveries

• The E3 trigger the JCPOA snapback mechanism 28 Aug 2025

  Diplomatic · Sanctions

• United Nations and European Union measures on Iran are reimposed 27 – 29 Sep 2025

  Sanctions · Diplomatic

• United States and Israeli strikes on Iran open the war 28 Feb 2026

  Military · Weapons deliveries

What remains unknown

• NO ACCESS IS NOT AN ANSWER, IN EITHER DIRECTION. The absence of verification does not establish that Iran suspended enrichment, and it does not establish that Iran continued it. Both readings are compatible with the evidence, and this module asserts neither. A reader who treats the gap as support for one side has drawn a conclusion the record explicitly refuses.
• The size, composition and whereabouts of Iran's enriched uranium are unknown. The Agency states it cannot provide any information on them, and it has lost continuity of knowledge over the inventories of nuclear material in Iran, including highly enriched uranium.
• The last verified stockpile figures are from 13 JUNE 2025 and are a historical baseline, not a current inventory: 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60% U-235, 184.1 kg to 20%, 6,024.4 kg to 5% and 2,391.1 kg to 2%, plus 834.4 kg in forms other than uranium hexafluoride. This module does not extrapolate any of these forward, does not apply a production rate, and does not publish a 2026 quantity.
• Whether enrichment is occurring, at what level and at what scale, is unverified. So are Iran's current centrifuge inventories and the condition of the declared sites the Agency cannot reach. Pre-war figures are not carried forward to fill these gaps.
• Whether Iran has moved toward weaponisation is contested at the highest level and is not resolved here. The Agency's Director General stated on 4 March 2026 that the Agency never had information indicating a structured, systematic Iranian programme to build a nuclear weapon; United States Director of National Intelligence testimony of 18 March 2026 stated that enrichment had not resumed, and the 2026 worldwide threat assessment does not indicate a weaponisation decision; the United States President has publicly asserted proximity to a weapon. These are different claims with different standing and the module carries them as such.
• The damage done to the programme by the June 2025 and 2026 strikes is disputed inside the United States government itself. A leaked Defense Intelligence Agency preliminary assessment reportedly put the setback at months; the CIA Director and the Director of National Intelligence circulated statements suggesting more severe damage. No damage assessment is authored anywhere in this module.
• The Agency's own reports were not retrieved directly: iaea.org returns HTTP 402 to automated requests, and the reports were read through a specialist analysis that quotes them. The quotations are treated as accurate reproductions; the underlying documents have not been read in full.

Readings the evidence also supports

• The denial of access is read by some as concealment of continued activity and by others as a sovereign response to being attacked while under inspection, with the Iranian legislation of 2 July 2025 following the June 2025 strikes rather than preceding them. The sequence is compatible with both readings and this record does not choose between them.
• Bushehr's continued inspection may indicate that Iran is distinguishing between civil power generation and the rest of the programme, or simply that a fuelled power reactor carries obligations and risks that make exclusion costly. The single inspected site establishes nothing about the other twenty.

Listed because the record's own assessment is not the only one its sources permit — not as a hedge on the assessment above.