Trump says Iran agreed to high-level nuclear inspections, but Tehran says there are no plans for IAEA visits to damaged enrichment sites.
President Trump said Tuesday that Iran had agreed to renewed nuclear inspections, but Tehran publicly rejected any such plan for sites damaged by U.S. and Israeli strikes, creating an immediate dispute over one of the most sensitive pieces of the latest U.S.-Iran diplomacy.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that Iran had “fully and completely agreed to highest level Nuclear inspections long into the future,” echoing Vice President JD Vance’s statement a day earlier that International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors could return to Iranian nuclear facilities as soon as this week.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei gave a sharply different account in Tehran, saying there were no plans for IAEA inspectors to visit the facilities damaged in the war. “We have not had a meeting with the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, nor do we have any plans for the agency to inspect Iran's nuclear facilities damaged by the U.S. and Zionist military aggression,” Baqaei said at a press conference.
The contradiction matters because the possible return of U.N. nuclear inspectors is central to any durable settlement over Iran’s nuclear program. One of the key sites is Isfahan, among the facilities struck last year, where IAEA officials believe Iran’s stockpile of roughly 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium is buried under rubble. The material is enriched to 60% purity, near the 90% level needed for a nuclear weapon.
Trump dismissed Iran’s denials as “protestations and false statements to the contrary” and said further negotiations would not continue without an inspection agreement. He also said he had lifted the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports and vessels “based on this and other major concessions being made by Iran.”
The public disagreement followed the first round of direct talks Sunday and technical negotiations in Switzerland. Iranian state media reported Tuesday that the talks had concluded with plans to establish four working groups: sanctions termination, nuclear affairs, reconstruction and economic development, and monitoring and implementation.
Baqaei said nuclear negotiations and sanctions relief talks depend on the implementation of other parts of the memorandum between the two sides. Iran has emphasized provisions calling for a halt to hostilities on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israeli forces remain active against Hezbollah.
The talks are also unfolding against the backdrop of uncertainty in the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway through which a large share of global oil and gas exports normally moves. Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Tuesday that the strait would “never return to its pre-war conditions” and would be administered by Iran in accordance with international law.
Shipping traffic through the strait has begun to recover but remains far below normal. Maritime tracking firm Kpler recorded at least 35 commodity carriers crossing Monday, the highest level since the war began in late February but still only about a third of peacetime traffic. The final count could rise because some ships turn off transponders while transiting.
For now, the inspection question remains unresolved: Washington is presenting Iranian access for U.N. inspectors as a commitment already made, while Tehran says the most sensitive damaged sites are not on the inspection schedule.
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