During a confidential congressional briefing on Thursday, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff revealed that Iran intends to grant the United Nations' nuclear watchdog access to its atomic facilities.
According to an Associated Press report citing two anonymous individuals familiar with the closed-door presentation, Witkoff informed lawmakers that Tehran will cooperate with the agency to locate and identify its stockpiles of enriched material.
The secret briefing was delivered to top congressional leaders and members of committees overseeing national security. According to the AP sources, Witkoff clarified that while the newly established memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran contains no hidden side agreements, an auxiliary side letter has been formally drawn up between the Iranian government and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to facilitate the inspections.
The existence of this supplementary document and the subsequent invitation were kept quiet until Witkoff disclosed them during the session. The Trump administration's envoy further noted that the formal letter sent to IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi is structured to explicitly permit the agency to include American nuclear inspectors as part of the teams entering Tehran.
While combined aerial campaigns by American and Israeli forces last June severely compromised or demolished the Islamic Republic’s core enrichment centers, intelligence assessments indicate that a substantial volume of the enriched material - including stockpiles refined near weapons-grade thresholds - remained intact.
To date, Tehran has withheld information from the IAEA regarding the present location or condition of that material, while concurrently blocking inspectors from conducting assessments at the bombed facilities.
An agreement announced last September between Iran and the IAEA, intended to resume inspections and uranium accounting, has since been declared void by Tehran after Britain, France, and Germany triggered the return of UN sanctions previously lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.
Grossi recently assessed that the bulk of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile is probably still located at the Isfahan nuclear complex which was struck last June.
The IAEA chief said at the time that the IAEA also seeks access to Iran’s nuclear sites at Natanz and Fordow, where additional nuclear material is present.