International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, is “increasingly concerned” about an underground uranium-enrichment plant at Isfahan that Iran declared last year but has not let the watchdog inspect, it said in a confidential report on Iran on Friday seen by Reuters. “The Agency does not know IFEP’s exact location, status for safeguards purposes, or whether it contains nuclear material,” the IAEA said in the quarterly report to member states, referring to the Isfahan Fuel Enrichment Plant (IFEP).
This comes after a senior Iranian official told Reuters in September that Iran will show no flexibility over its nuclear program even if the United States accepts its proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which calls for steps including the lifting of a US naval blockade on Iranian ports. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the waterway would remain closed until the United States meets “all of Iran’s conditions.” Further, Iran is debating whether to maintain its longstanding ban on nuclear weapons in the event that hostilities resume, although no decision on any changes has been taken, the regime’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei told state TV on October 31.
