Could ongoing Iran-IAEA stalemate risk new war?
Iran's standoff with the UN nuclear watchdog has sharpened after Tehran blocked inspections and dismissed Western calls for compliance.
TEHRAN — Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) appear to be headed into yet another cycle of confrontation, with the latest report from the watchdog warning that Iran has blocked access to key nuclear sites for five months.
The new report, circulated to member states this week, confirms that the agency inspectors have not been granted access into the nuclear sites bombed by Israel and the United States during the war in June.
The report noted that the IAEA remains unable to verify the status of Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity. Under the agency's own guidelines, such stocks must be verified every month because they are just one technical step below weapons-grade enrichment.
Iran's refusal to grant access, coupled with its insistence that an earlier cooperation framework reached in Cairo in September is now void, has generated concern in Western capitals that the nuclear file is drifting once again into dangerous territory, where diplomatic stagnation and technical opacity reinforce each other.
