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Iran, IAEA enter 'new phase'
11/01/2008 15:46 - (SA)
Tehran - Iran's co-operation with the UN nuclear watchdog has entered a "new phase", a top Iranian nuclear official said on Friday after International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, arrived in Tehran for talks concerning Iran's disputed nuclear programme.
ElBaradei's discussions with Iranian leaders are critical because they will be the basis for a report on Iran by the UN agency that was supposed to be wrapped up by December but was apparently postponed to March on Tehran's request.
The talks also come in the wake of a US intelligence report last month that concluded Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons programme in late 2003 and had not resumed it since.
In November, an IAEA report said Iran had been truthful about its past uranium enrichment activities.
Elbaradei, who arrived in Tehran early on Friday, is scheduled to spend his two-day trip meeting with leaders including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vice-President and head of Atomic Energy Organisation Gholam Reza Aghazadeh and others.
Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, said Iran's co-operation with the IAEA has paved the way for Tehran's nuclear dossier be returned from the UN Security Council back to the Vienna-based IAEA.
"Given Iran's active co-operation with the IAEA and settlement of fundamental and important issues over Iran's nuclear programme, relations between Tehran and IAEA has entered a new phase," Saeedi was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying on Friday.
ElBaradei has spearheaded more than four years of international efforts to press Iran for full disclosure of its nuclear activities. ElBaradei's spokesperson Melissa Fleming said on Monday he would visit Tehran "with a view of resolving all remaining outstanding issues and enabling the agency to provide assurance about Iran's past and present activities".
Prior to his departure, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged ElBaradei to press for full co-operation from Iran over its past nuclear activities.
"Iran has many questions that it needs to answer about its past behaviour, they also need to account for what they're doing now," deputy spokesperson Tom Casey said on Thursday.
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