Grossi’s recent remarks, on the agency’s inability to fully carry out its safeguards responsibilities in Iran due to a lack of information and access, may appear to be a technical report. But under the current circumstances, they cannot be analyzed simply as a technical dispute between Iran and the .

The current state of safeguards monitoring in Iran is not the result of an ordinary decision or an administrative disagreement. Iran’s nuclear facilities were targeted by US and Israeli military attacks, and the itself has acknowledged that the attacks severely affected Iran’s nuclear safety and security and prevented access to damaged facilities.

If the is now unable to fully perform its safeguards duties, the first question should be: who disrupted the conditions necessary for those duties to be carried out, and through what action?

This is where Grossi’s choice of words matters. When the director general simply says that the agency has been unable to fulfil its safeguards responsibilities, without explicitly noting in the same statement that the situation arose after a military attack on safeguarded nuclear facilities, it inadvertently creates the impression that Iran’s conduct is the main cause of the problem. In reality, the starting point was the military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

This matters because protecting nuclear facilities from military attack is not merely a bilateral issue between Iran and the . For decades, the international community has stressed the need to protect nuclear facilities from military action and its associated risks. Attacks on such facilities can have consequences beyond the borders of the targeted country, endangering human life and the environment.

The has also stressed the dangers of military attacks on nuclear facilities following the attacks. But there is an important difference between expressing concern about the consequences of an attack and explicitly condemning the attack and identifying those responsible.

When safeguarded facilities have been attacked, the natural expectation of an institution tasked with protecting the non-proliferation regime and implementing safeguards would be for it to place the attack at the center of its attention, rather than directing most of its demands at the country whose facilities were attacked.

This cannot be dismissed as merely a matter of wording or report drafting. The impartiality of an international institution is not limited to the final content of its reports. How it defines the problem, identifies its cause and assigns responsibility is also part of impartiality.

If a military attack is what made inspections impossible, omitting or downplaying that cause in the official narrative is, by definition, a sign of bias in how the issue is framed.

This is particularly important in Iran’s case, because the crisis of trust between Tehran and the is not new. Iran has repeatedly cooperated with the agency over the years, and the itself has spoken of Iranian cooperation and access at various points. From Tehran’s perspective, however, the agency’s performance has often failed to reflect a technical and impartial approach, while its positions and reports have effectively contributed to increased political pressure on Iran.

The ’s claim to impartiality, therefore, cannot be accepted by Iran simply through repeated use of words such as “technical” and “safeguards”. Impartiality must be demonstrated in practice.

The issue has now become even more complicated. Iran is in the midst of a war and direct confrontation with the US and Israel, the two parties that have targeted its nuclear facilities in this conflict. Under such circumstances, information on the extent of damage, the status of nuclear materials, remaining capabilities, vulnerable points and the facilities’ ability to be rebuilt is no longer merely technical data. Some of it may have direct security and strategic value.

In these circumstances, Iran cannot be expected to share sensitive strategic information with an institution that has a long record of bias towards Iran’s adversaries and has failed to demonstrate its impartiality in practice.

This does not mean denying Iran’s membership in the NPT or rejecting its safeguards obligations. Iran continues to have rights and obligations under international treaties. But rights and obligations have meaning within a reciprocal legal system, and national security considerations cannot be ignored in wartime.

When a country is at war with two major regional and extra-regional actors, it cannot be expected to provide, merely on the basis of a legal demand, information that is of considerable military and security value to those same adversaries, particularly through an institution that has failed to establish trust with that country.

More importantly, conditions created by a military attack cannot be presented in a way that makes Iran’s alleged lack of cooperation appear to be the main issue.

If the genuinely wants a return to diplomacy, it must first demonstrate impartiality in its own account of the crisis: it must take the cause of the disruption to inspections as seriously as the disruption itself.

From this perspective, the issue between Iran and the today is not simply whether inspectors should have access to Iran’s facilities. The more fundamental questions are: who guarantees the security of Iran’s information in wartime, and which institution accepts responsibility for the attack that made the implementation of safeguards impossible?

Until the answers these questions, insisting on the same monitoring mechanisms used in peacetime, without regard to the security realities following the attack, will not necessarily build trust. It may instead deepen the crisis of confidence.

Safeguards cooperation has meaning only when a minimum level of mutual trust exists. The cannot ask Iran to share its most sensitive strategic information amid a war with the US and Israel with an institution that has never been able to demonstrate its independence and impartiality towards Iran’s adversaries.

Iran’s issue with the , therefore, is not simply a matter of “access”. It is whether an institution that claims to provide impartial oversight has itself demonstrated impartiality in practice, and in the way it has addressed the crisis, at the most sensitive moment.