Iranian officials said they have no plans to allow international inspections of their country’s damaged nuclear facilities, just a day after Vice President JD Vance said Iran had agreed to allow such inspections, which would restore a safeguard from President Barack Obama’s deal with Tehran that President Donald Trump threw out.
On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said that there was no plan for the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect Iran’s nuclear facilities damaged by the war and that officials had not met with the director general of the nuclear watchdog.
“There is simply no established procedure for this matter,” Baqaei said in comments reported by state media, adding that Iran would “adhere to the standard procedures, which are already well-defined and transparent.”
Iran was already subject to regular inspections under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and agreed to more intensive monitoring under the Obama nuclear deal that Trump frequently condemned. After Trump terminated that agreement in 2018, Iran blocked IAEA access to some sites, while some inspections continued.
Since last June, Iran has prohibited the inspectors from visiting sites bombed by the U.S. and Israel.
Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that discussion of Iranian nuclear activities is set for the next stage of talks. The ceasefire memorandum that Trump signed at the Palace of Versailles on Wednesday gave the U.S. and Iran 60 days to resolve their hardest disputes, including over the fate of Iran’s uranium stockpile and the Strait of Hormuz.
In a news conference Monday at the Bürgenstock resort in Switzerland, Vance said conversations with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency could happen as soon as that day.
But Baquaei’s contradictory comments Tuesday highlighted the difficulty of turning the fragile ceasefire into a more comprehensive peace agreement.
Baquaei also said Iran would be free to use unfrozen assets or revenue from oil sales as it sees fit, after Vance said that such funds, if unfrozen, would be subject to oversight and could benefit American farmers. “The important point is that Iran’s previously blocked assets are now available and can be used freely by Iran in accordance with its own priorities,” Baqaei said, according to Iranian state media.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian traveled to Pakistan on Tuesday to meet with officials there who have been mediating the negotiations with the U.S. “The effectiveness of the talks depends on full commitment to the agreed obligations and their precise implementation,” he said in a post on X, in an apparent acknowledgment of the broad-brush nature of the 14-point memorandum of understanding.
“Statements outside the agreed text do not help advance the negotiations,” he added.
The ceasefire called for an end to Israeli attacks in Lebanon, and over the weekend, Israeli attacks tested the deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government did not sign the agreement, however, and has criticized it, and U.S. intelligence warned that Netanyahu would probably undermine it by continuing the attacks. On Sunday, Trump accused Iran-backed Hezbollah militants of “causing trouble” in Lebanon.
Overnight, Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Israel Defense Forces Chief of the General Staff Eyal Zamir issued a joint statement saying the IDF would “continue to act with determination in order to neutralize threats” and maintain what it calls a “security zone” in southern Lebanon.
Netanyahu spokesman David Mencer had earlier said that the Israeli and Lebanese governments were in direct negotiations brokered by the United States.
The post Iran casts doubt on nuclear inspections Vance said would happen appeared first on Washington Post.
