Iran backs nuclear treaty even as hardliners raise prospect of bomb

Tehran, Iran – Iran says it has not suspended its commitments under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), but as mediated talks to end the war with the United States continue, broad international inspections of Iranian sites remain far off.

Following US and Israeli attacks on Iran’s main nuclear facilities in and assassinations of senior leaders, Iranian authorities have increasingly discussed the possibility of abandoning the international treaty and building a nuclear bomb.

US President Donald Trump’s threats to attack the underground Pickaxe Mountain complex near the Natanz nuclear facility and other sensitive sites have only emboldened hardliners in Tehran to demand a shift in the country’s nuclear doctrine – under assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, nuclear weapons were officially forbidden.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei emphasised to reporters during a news conference in Tehran on Monday that the Islamic Republic remains committed to the NPT, despite restricting cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.

“Other parties have imposed conditions, namely the attacks by the US and Zionist regime against our nuclear facilities which have caused issues concerning implementation of safeguards commitments,” he said, in reference to Israel.

“As long as this situation continues, we cannot act like normal circumstances in our cooperation with the agency,” Baghaei said about the IAEA, while also renewing Tehran’s criticism of its director, Rafael Grossi.

But the spokesman confirmed that new IAEA inspections were conducted days earlier at the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

The electricity generation plant, built in cooperation with Russia and under development for new phases, is the only facility still accessible to the agency, as it was not directly bombed during the war. US warplanes did, however, attack the perimeter of the plant several times and caused damage, prompting partial evacuation of Russian personnel, who have yet to fully return.

IAEA chief Grossi told the UN Security Council in late October that the body was unable to verify Iran’s nuclear material because Tehran “has not provided the requested information and access”.

Ali Vaez, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the International Crisis Group, said Tehran is keeping one foot inside the NPT and the other near the exit.

“Allowing inspections at Bushehr is a low-cost gesture designed to keep diplomacy alive and hardliners at bay, while preserving leverage over the underground nuclear sites that matter most,” he told Al Jazeera.

Those sensitive sites include the Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan facilities, among others.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a visiting researcher at Princeton University and a former Iranian nuclear negotiator, said Iran’s position “reflects a distinction between honouring its NPT commitments and permitting inspections of facilities that have been bombed”.

Mousavian said the IAEA had no established inspection protocol for nuclear facilities damaged by military attacks, and pointed out that the Iranians fear that IAEA access to sensitive sites would lead to information being shared with the US and Israel that could then be used in future attacks.

“Tehran views restrictions on broader inspections as a security concern rather than necessarily a rejection of its NPT obligations,” he said.

Nuclear commitments and benefits

Iran has had one of the most scrutinised nuclear programmes in history, and its international obligations are governed by several treaties and UN resolutions.

The NPT establishes the fundamental rules against nuclear proliferation, while recognising the right to peaceful nuclear energy. A separate safeguards agreement with the IAEA sets out how the agency monitors Iran’s nuclear activities to make sure it isn’t moving towards weapons development. Subsidiary arrangements, UN Security Council resolutions and nuclear agreements have fulfilled additional requirements.

As a party to the NPT, Iran’s peaceful nuclear-use rights are recognised, and it is allowed to undertake peaceful exchanges and receive assistance with nuclear development.

In exchange, the country commits not to receive, manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, and to accept safeguards and information sharing in its territory.

Withdrawal requires a notice after a decision has been made that “extraordinary events” have “jeopardised the supreme interests” of the country.

However, the treaty does not protect from conventional military attack, and this gap between promised peaceful-use benefits and actual vulnerability has been at the centre of the appeal by domestic hardliners to leave the NPT.

But such considerations have not been limited to a handful of hawkish figures.

Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei has publicly deliberated the possibility of abandoning the treaty on multiple occasions. Hossein Mohebbi, spokesman of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said earlier this week that the organisation “will create the necessary preparations” if the Islamic Republic goes through with the decision to change its nuclear doctrine.

Negotiations ongoing

Regional mediators like Qatar and Pakistan continue to relay messages between Iran and the US to prevent another all-out war, although analysts have warned that escalation is likely over the coming months.

Tehran has maintained that it will not allow its highly enriched uranium to be taken out of the country, but remains open to downblending it under international supervision inside Iran. It has also said it will not abandon enrichment altogether, but can accept a limit on enrichment as it did with the 2015 nuclear deal that US President Donald Trump unilaterally abandoned in 2018, during his first term in office.

Arriving at a deal that thoroughly addresses Iran’s nuclear programme would also require a resolution to hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz and beyond, something that is unlikely to materialise in the foreseeable future.

“Tehran might be willing to open the door a crack in exchange for tangible American concessions, but it is unlikely to surrender its most valuable nuclear bargaining chips upfront,” the Crisis Group’s Vaez said.

The expert added that a preliminary deal could potentially unlock limited, phased inspections based on the 2025 Cairo agreement between Iran and the IAEA.

The agreement came several months after the US and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities during the 12-day war of June 2025. It envisaged restored access for agency inspectors to all Iranian facilities, if case-by-case permission is granted by the country’s Supreme National Security Council.

But it was never enforced, and was followed by tensions that led to the US and Israel attacking Iran again on February 28.

“Restoring meaningful transparency over Iran’s nuclear programme will require a larger bargain on enrichment, stockpiles and sanctions relief,” Vaez said.

But Mousavian said Tehran would want more than just a preliminary agreement like the Cairo deal.

“Such cooperation would require a comprehensive agreement that addresses the overall security and nuclear issues; without it, inspections of the bombed sites are unlikely,” he said.