On June 23 Tehran’s foreign ministry said it has made no new commitment to admit nuclear inspectors to its war-damaged facilities, directly contradicting US Vice-President JD Vance’s claim of a breakthrough and exposing the verification gap at the heart of the 60-day deal timeline.
Iran on June 23 publicly rejected US assertions that it had agreed to readmit UN nuclear inspectors to its bombed atomic sites, with foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei telling reporters there is no scheduled visit for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and “no protocol” for such inspections. Baghaei said Tehran’s cooperation with the agency would continue only “within the framework of its safeguards commitments and in accordance with decisions made by Iran’s parliament and the Supreme National Security Council,” according to The Media Line.
The statement is a direct, on-the-record rebuttal of US Vice-President JD Vance, who said after a first round of talks in Bürgenstock, Switzerland, that Iran had agreed to invite IAEA inspectors back “at the minimum of this week,” calling it the development “we’re most excited about as Americans” and saying the two sides had “laid a very good foundation for a successful final deal.” Iran’s IRGC-linked Tasnim agency had earlier said neither the negotiating team nor senior officials had authorized any return of inspectors.
Baghaei drew a sharp line between routine and war-damaged sites, saying that under the memorandum of understanding inspections of operating facilities such as the Russian-built Bushehr power plant would continue, while Iran would maintain only its existing obligations as a Non-Proliferation Treaty member and under its safeguards agreement, a framing echoed by The Times of Israel.
The dispute matters because the deal’s only stated method for neutralizing Iran’s most sensitive material is on-site work the inspectors are being denied. The MoU identifies “downblending” of enriched uranium under IAEA supervision as the minimum acceptable means of dealing with the stockpile, and US experts have warned that such supervision is meaningful only if inspectors first regain access to locate and account for the material.
That material is substantial. The IAEA’s last full accounting before the June 2025 strikes put Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to 60 percent — a short technical step from weapons grade — at 440.9 kilograms, much of it believed buried in the Esfahan tunnel complex. Since the war the agency has reached only a fraction of declared sites, with Bushehr the sole post-conflict inspection.
On sanctions, the two sides remain at odds over sequencing. Vice President Vance said any unfrozen funds would not be allowed to finance terrorism, while Iran maintains that access to its restricted assets is linked to negotiating “progress” over the 60-day period rather than to signing. The competing claims leave the central question of the deal unresolved on June 23: whether the agency can verify any enrichment limit at all.
