UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council convened a special briefing Tuesday morning on the Iran inspection regime established by last month’s ceasefire extension, with International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi presenting a pre-visit assessment one week ahead of the first on-site verification mission to Natanz, the most politically sensitive of three Iranian nuclear facilities struck during the seven-week war.

Mr. Grossi, addressing the chamber by video link from Vienna at 10:14 a.m. local time, told the fifteen-member body that the agency had concluded “the technical and procedural conditions necessary for a credible inspection cycle” and that a 22-person team would deploy to Tehran on May 17 in advance of the May 19 site visit. He said preliminary remote monitoring data, captured by IAEA cameras restored at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan in the last ten days, were “consistent with declared activity levels” and showed no indication of undeclared reconstitution at any of the three sites.

“The agency does not yet know what it will find on the ground,” Mr. Grossi told the Council. “What it knows is that the instruments of finding are now in place and that, by the end of the month, this body will hold a verified picture of the post-war Iranian fuel cycle for the first time since the war began.”

The session, requested last week by Britain and France with the support of the United States, marks the first formal Council engagement with the Doha framework architecture since the April 18 prisoner exchange. It was chaired by Algeria, which holds the Council presidency for May, and ran four hours, including a closed consultations segment after the public briefing concluded.

Algerian Ambassador Amar Bendjama, in opening remarks, said the briefing was not intended to “renegotiate or supplement” the Doha and Vienna texts but to “place this Council on the record as informed and engaged” ahead of a draft resolution circulating in the corridors that would formally welcome the inspection regime and extend the mandate of the UN observer mission in the Strait of Hormuz through November. A vote on that resolution is expected later this week, diplomats said.

Russia and China, both of which have endorsed the Doha framework in principle while pressing for sanctions relief commitments to move on a faster track, gave measured statements. Russian Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy welcomed Mr. Grossi’s report and said Moscow would support the draft resolution provided its preambular language did not “prejudge the question of long-term sanctions architecture, which is for the parties and the Security Council to address in due course.” Chinese Ambassador Fu Cong said Beijing supported “the verification track and the reconstruction track in parallel” and called for additional Council attention to the humanitarian situation along the Iran-Iraq border, where a cholera outbreak has reached more than six thousand cases.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who returned to the New York mission from a weekend of consultations in Washington, said the United States would co-sponsor the resolution and called the inspection regime “the load-bearing wall of everything else that has been negotiated since April.” She added that Washington expected the May 19 visit to proceed “on the timetable, with the access envelope and through the chain of custody that were agreed in Vienna,” and said any deviation would be reported promptly to the Council.

Iranian Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani, addressing the Council under Rule 37 as a concerned party, said Iran would honor the inspection schedule “in full and on time” and pressed for parallel progress on the sanctions roadmap discussed in Geneva late last month. “Verification cannot live alone in this architecture,” Mr. Iravani told the chamber. “Iran has accepted access on terms more intrusive than any prior arrangement. Iran expects, and will require, that the corresponding sanctions calendar move with the inspection calendar.”

Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon, who attended in observer status, declined to address the chamber publicly but met with U.S. and European counterparts during the recess. A spokesperson for the Israeli mission said afterward that Jerusalem would assess the regime “by the substance of the May 19 visit and the integrity of the summary channel,” referring to the redacted-then-unredacted reporting pathway by which Israel will receive inspection findings through Washington within 72 hours of each visit.

European capitals have been pressing for a Council endorsement before the Natanz visit takes place, both to lock in international legitimacy for the inspection regime and to preempt any move by hardliners in Tehran or Jerusalem to disrupt the cycle. “If the resolution passes before May 19, the visit becomes a UN-blessed event, not a bilateral favor,” a senior European diplomat said, granted anonymity to discuss closed consultations.

The draft resolution, a copy of which circulated to delegations Monday evening, runs to nine operative paragraphs. It welcomes the Doha framework; takes note of the Vienna technical annex; endorses the IAEA’s inspection mandate through year-end; extends the Hormuz observer mission for six months; and requests the Secretary-General to report to the Council every 60 days on implementation, beginning July 15.

Outside the chamber, the briefing landed against a busy regional backdrop. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi returned to Tehran Monday from two days of bilateral talks in Riyadh, the first publicly announced visit by an Iranian official to the kingdom since the ceasefire. Saudi and Iranian officials said working-level follow-up on a naval communications protocol would continue ahead of the May 26 framework session in Muscat.

“The Council is catching up with a process that has been running ahead of it for a month,” said Richard Gowan, who tracks the UN for the International Crisis Group, in a telephone interview. “What it can usefully do this week is put a multilateral stamp on what Doha, Vienna and Marseille have already produced.”

Mr. Grossi, in concluding remarks, asked the Council not to over-interpret the first inspection cycle. He said the agency would publish a preliminary technical report within ten working days of the Natanz visit and a fuller assessment, incorporating Fordow and Isfahan, by mid-June.

Council diplomats said a vote on the resolution was tentatively scheduled for Thursday or Friday, with adoption widely expected. Officials at the U.S. mission said additional procedural steps, including the formal communication of the Council’s endorsement to the IAEA Board of Governors, would follow promptly after passage.