The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, lamented in remarks on Thursday that the United Nations, of which the IAEA is part, has been “absent” from the world’s greatest conflicts.
Grossi made the remarks during an event in London, within the context of his candidate to run the United Nations. The term of current Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expiring this year, prompting the somewhat convoluted and backdoor process of various successor candidates making their pitches to the body. First, the Security Council, the most powerful body of the U.N., nominates a candidate, whom the General Assembly then confirms. The United Nations has officially approved five candidates for secretary-general this year. Grossi’s closest competition is believed to be Michelle Bachelet, the socialist former president of Chile and apologist for the Uyghur genocide in China, along with Maria Fernanda Espinosa, the former president of the General Assembly.
Grossi has been on the front lines of two of the most high-profile conflicts in the world today: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where the IAEA has advocated for the protection of various nuclear sites in the war theater; and the conflict between Iran and America. The IAEA, under Grossi’s leadership, condemned Iran for violating international law in 2025 for the first time in two decades, which led to the U.S. military taking action against three of Iran’s largest nuclear sites last year. Iran and America continue in conflict today under an ongoing ceasefire, and are reported to be negotiating a peace agreement that Washington insists must result in the long-term dissolution of any Iranian illicit nuclear development.
In his remarks on Thursday, Grossi mentioned these two conflicts, as well as ongoing civil war in Sudan and Israel’s conflicts with neighboring parties.
“Interstate war has returned after many years here in Europe but also in Africa and many other places,” he noted, according to the Emirati newspaper The National. “The UN is absent from the management or resolution of any of the conflicts I have just mentioned. It needn’t be so.”
“It’s not going to happen unless we do something differently,” he continued. “It is only going to happen when there is a conviction in leaders, in belligerent nations, that the participation of the U.N., and in particular the SG, is going to facilitate a better outcome than what they are having.”
Grossi added that he believed it was “possible” for the United Nations to be a relevant party in these conflicts because of his personal experience running the IAEA. He also reported lay the blame of the U.N.’s inability to act in a timely and impactful manner on the size of its bureaucracy, outsourcing jobs he said should belong to the secretary-general to a host of “special rapporteurs” and other officials. He suggested that he would shut down several special rapporteur offices if he was chosen to run the United Nations.
“In the area of international peace and security, there is a moral and statutory obligation for the secretary General to assume these roles,” he argued. “This proliferation of figures has become too much and it has to be stopped.”
Grossi’s candidacy to run the U.N. is notably being supported by his home country of Argentina, where current President Javier Milei, a libertarian, won the office on a promise to eliminate as many government offices as possible.
The IAEA chief has been an active player in the ongoing crisis between America and Iran as his agency has condemned Tehran for failing to allow proper inspections of nuclear sites and nearly all parties involved for their disrespect of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or 2015 Obama nuclear deal. In 2024, Grossi lamented publicly that the deal “exists only on paper and means nothing… Nobody applies it, nobody follows it.”
In June 2025, while presenting a periodic report to the IAEA board of governors, Grossi revealed that Iranian officials were being highly non-cooperative with the U.N. agency and actively compromising proper inspections of nuclear sites.
“Unfortunately, Iran has repeatedly either not answered, or not provided technically credible answers to, the Agency’s questions. It has also sought to sanitize the locations, which has impeded Agency verification activities,” he shared.
As a result of his report, the IAEA voted for the first time in 20 years to hold Iran in violation of international law. Shortly after, the U.S. military conducted airstrikes targeting three of Iran’s largest uranium enrichment and other nuclear sites in the cities of Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow. As a result, Iranian officials threatened Grossi personally, blaming him for revealing the extent of Iran’s violations.
“Once the war is over, we will settle accounts with Grossi,” senior adviser to the “supreme leader” Ali Larijani said ominously in June 2025.
In March, the Iranian government confirmed that Larijani had been eliminated in American military operations pursuant to Operation Epic Freedom, which President Donald Trump launched in February to contain Iran’s terrorist activities. The “supreme leader,” Ali Khamenei, died on the first day of the operation.
Grossi has remained involved in the global conversation around potential peace talks to end Operation Epic Freedom, which President Trump has insisted must address Iran’s nuclear activity. Grossi has supported the White House’s insistence that regular inspections and limits on Iranian nuclear activity are necessary for a successful agreement and argued that the IAEA must be involved in those inspections.
“Iran has a very ambitious, wide nuclear program so all of that will require the presence of IAEA inspectors,” he said in March. “Otherwise, you will not have an agreement. You will have an illusion of an agreement.”
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