Iran says IAEA will not be allowed to inspect bombed nuclear sites

Iran said Tuesday that inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog would not be given access to its nuclear sites that were bombed during the war with Israel and the United States last year.

"We have not had a meeting with the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, nor do we have any plans for the agency to inspect Iran's nuclear facilities damaged by the US and Zionist military aggression," said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei at a press conference in Tehran attended by AFP.

On Monday US Vice President JD Vance had said Iran would allow UN nuclear inspectors to return, calling it "a major milestone... and the first step in permanently denuclearising" Iran.

It followed talks between the foes in Switzerland mediated by Pakistan and Qatar.

In June last year a 12-day war between Israel and Iran, which the United States later joined, saw Washington bomb three nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Iran said Natanz was again hit in the most recent war with the US and Israel, but Israel said it was "not aware of a strike".

US President Donald Trump claimed last year to have "obliterated" Iran's nuclear programme, but the extent of the damage is not known.

Iran has so far denied access to the sites, citing security concerns.

Under a law passed by its parliament, Iran suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency in July last year, criticising the agency for failing to condemn the Israeli-American strikes.

But in September it agreed to resume cooperation after the two sides reached an agreement on a new framework. This deal however did not apply to the bombed sites.

"There is basically no protocol in this regard," Baqaei said on Tuesday.

"As a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, as a country committed to safeguards agreements, we will continue the current procedure, and I think the current procedure is very clear," he added.

Iran 'only country' to determine how to use unfrozen assets

Tehran alone will decide how to use its frozen assets once they are unfrozen under a US-Iranian deal towards ending the Middle East war, an Iranian ambassador said Tuesday, contradicting US claims.

As part of the deal under negotiation, Washington has agreed to release $12 billion in frozen funds to Iran, Iranian state media reported on Tuesday, and temporarily suspend sanctions on oil from the Islamic republic.

US Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that Iranian assets had not yet been unfrozen as part of the deal and that, if they were, they could be used to buy US goods such as soybeans and would not fund terrorism.

Ali Bahreini, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, rejected that.

"Iran is the only country who will decide what to do with its assets, which are going to be defrozen," he told reporters at a briefing in Geneva hosted by the UN correspondents' association ACANU.

"I reject any claim by (Washington) about that there should... be any role for any other country to have an influence on those decisions or on those processes."

Iran has been subject to asset freezes and sweeping sanctions by the United States and others for much of its history since the 1979 Islamic revolution.