The 35-member Board of Governors adopted the resolution on Wednesday by 23 votes to three, with eight abstentions. China, Russia and Niger voted against the measure, while one member did not vote because it was in arrears. The United States, Britain, France and Germany put forward the text.
The resolution asks IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to transmit the decision, along with earlier board resolutions, to the Security Council and the UN General Assembly. It also renews demands that Iran urgently remedy what the board describes as non-compliance with its safeguards agreement and take steps needed for the agency to verify that nuclear material has not been diverted.
The referral shifts the dispute to the Security Council, which can consider additional measures. Any attempt to impose new punitive action faces a major political obstacle because Russia and China, both permanent council members with veto power, opposed the IAEA resolution and have resisted Western efforts to increase pressure on Tehran.
The vote follows the board’s June 2025 finding that Iran was not complying with its non-proliferation obligations because it had failed to provide technically credible explanations for uranium particles detected at undeclared locations. Iran rejects allegations that it pursued a weapons programme and says its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes.
The immediate dispute has also been sharpened by the agency’s inability to verify parts of Iran’s nuclear programme after US and Israeli strikes on nuclear facilities. Inspectors have not regained access to several affected sites, leaving the IAEA unable to establish the current location and condition of enriched uranium and associated equipment.
Grossi told the board this week that the lack of information about the facilities and nuclear material, combined with the agency’s inability to conduct verification there, represented a serious proliferation concern that required urgent attention. Before access was disrupted, the IAEA estimated Iran held 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity, close to the level needed for weapons-grade material if enriched further.
The European Union said Iran must provide updated, verifiable declarations covering the quantity and whereabouts of nuclear material and related activities and allow inspections to resume at all nuclear facilities. Western governments argue that access is essential if the agency is to determine whether Iran’s programme remains exclusively peaceful.
Tehran condemned the resolution as politically driven and blamed the breakdown in inspections on military attacks against its safeguarded nuclear sites. Iran’s mission in Vienna said the situation had been created by US and Israeli military action and accused Western powers of using the agency’s safeguards process to legitimise pressure against the country.
Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi argued that the same attacks that disrupted verification were now being cited as grounds for censure. Iran’s ambassador to international organisations in Vienna, Reza Najafi, said Tehran would cooperate with inspectors only to the extent that security conditions permitted.
The disagreement leaves the IAEA caught between its statutory obligation to verify declared nuclear material and Iran’s insistence that normal inspection activity cannot proceed safely while hostilities continue. The agency has not stated that Iran possesses a nuclear weapon, and Grossi has previously stressed that a stockpile capable of being further enriched does not by itself establish that a weapon has been built.
Washington and its European partners nevertheless say the unresolved safeguards questions and loss of monitoring require Security Council attention. Moscow and Beijing have argued that pressure through the IAEA risks further damaging diplomacy and have opposed steps they view as politicising the technical work of the watchdog.
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