IAEA notes progress in Syria investigation, no breakthrough on Iran
IAEA report credits new Syrian authorities' "transparency and cooperation" but says inspectors have not returned to Iranian sites hit in June 2025.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports progress in resolving long-standing questions about undeclared nuclear activities in Syria dating to the era of the Assad family, while saying the separate Iran case has shown no comparable advance.
In a report distributed to member states ahead of the IAEA Board of Governors' quarterly meeting next week, the agency praised the new Syrian authorities for their "transparency and cooperation" in helping to identify past activities and material still present in the country.
Those findings follow the removal of President Bashar al-Assad from power in late 2024 and a subsequent commitment by Syria's new authorities to cooperate with the IAEA.
Deir ez-Zor and the 2007 strike
The report confirmed that the 2007 Israeli strike on an undeclared site in the eastern Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor targeted a nuclear reactor that was under construction.
By contrast, the agency says it has made no fresh progress on Iran: inspectors have not yet returned to nuclear facilities that the United States and Israel struck in June 2025.
Before those attacks, the IAEA estimated that Iran held 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity — "which is only one step away from roughly 90 percent enrichment needed for weapons-grade uranium." Under IAEA criteria, that amount would be sufficient, if further enriched, to produce 10 nuclear weapons, and Iran also possessed material enriched to lower levels.
Photo: press material from the event
