IAEA opens its 70th General Conference as Guterres warns on attacks and proliferation

The International Atomic Energy Agency opened its 70th General Conference in Vienna on 14 September with a warning from the UN Secretary-General that attacks on nuclear facilities are rising and that the drivers of nuclear proliferation are accelerating while the guardrails against it are falling.

Antonio Guterres's message was read by Monica Juma, director-general of the UN Office at Vienna. He called the IAEA the custodian of the safeguards system and said recent safeguards work in Syria showed why member states need to keep backing the agency's technical role. He listed three immediate asks: full cooperation with inspectors on Iran's programme, full support for the agency at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, and predictable money for the Technical Cooperation Fund that pays for work in developing countries.

Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi addressed the opening session. Argentine ambassador Gustavo Zlauvinen was elected conference president. The meeting runs through 18 September at the Vienna International Centre and gathers the agency's 181 member states. The agenda published as GC(70) includes the 2025 annual report, the 2027 budget update, the Nuclear Security Report 2026, safeguards effectiveness, the application of safeguards in the Middle East and in North Korea, and a dedicated paper on nuclear safety, security and safeguards in Ukraine.

Two political items sit on the supplementary list. Israel asked for an agenda slot on Israeli Nuclear Capabilities. The United States asked for a slot on the transfer of nuclear material under AUKUS and its safeguards treatment under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran sent a credentials communication on 14 September. Separately, coverage of the week noted that Iranian official Mohammad Eslami was barred from the IAEA meeting under US pressure.

The Scientific Forum that accompanies the conference opened on 15 September on the agency's Rays of Hope cancer programme, which aims to widen access to radiotherapy in countries that have little or none. That is the civilian half of the week, and it is the half Guterres funded with his reference to human health and agriculture.

The security half is in the Ukraine and Iran papers. Zaporizhzhia has been a live risk since 2022. Iran's inspection file has been the agency's longest-running political fight. Guterres's sentence about rising attacks on nuclear sites is a reference to both the Ukrainian war and strikes on facilities elsewhere in the Middle East. He did not name those sites in the extract released by his office.

Grossi's opening statement and the Ukraine safeguards paper are the documents inspectors will use when they brief capitals this week. Zaporizhzhia remains under Russian military control and connected, when it is connected, under conditions the agency has repeatedly called unsafe. Iran's file is the other standing item. Guterres named both in one paragraph.

Member-state speeches are capped at seven minutes. India, Japan, China, France, the European Union and dozens of others filed texts on the first day. The votes that matter will come later in the week on the budget, on board elections and on any resolution that tries to instruct the secretariat on Iran, Ukraine or AUKUS.

The Rays of Hope forum is the public counterweight: radiotherapy bunkers and training, not enrichment. Member states that dislike the Iran or Ukraine texts can still pledge to the Technical Cooperation Fund and claim they backed the development mandate. Watch the pledge table as closely as the resolutions. That is where the agency's civilian work lives or shrinks for 2027.

The opening message set the frame: the agency is being asked to police more conflict-adjacent sites with no matching rise in political consensus behind it. How the conference funds the 2027 budget will show whether that ask is being met.