UN atomic team in Iran for nuclear talks
2012-12-13 15:10
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Tehran - UN atomic watchdog experts arrived in Iran on
Thursday to renew efforts to engage Tehran over its disputed nuclear programme,
but media reports said an inspection visit to suspect sites was off the agenda.
The seven-strong International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) team was scheduled to hold closed-door sessions with officials during
its one-day stop in the Iranian capital, the ISNA news agency reported.
"If the talks are progressing constructively, the
IAEA team will be able to stay as long as necessary," a Vienna-based
diplomat told AFP.
The IAEA says the talks aim to reach agreement on a
"structured approach" for Tehran to address allegations of
weaponisation and for the watchdog to gain broader access to Iran's nuclear
sites and people working in the programme.
The agency also wants to inspect Parchin, a restricted
military complex near Tehran where the IAEA suspects experiments with
explosives capable of triggering a nuclear weapon could have been carried out.
"We also hope that Iran will allow us to go the site
of Parchin, and if Iran would grant us access we would welcome that chance and
we are ready to go," team leader Chief Inspector Herman Nackaerts told
reporters at Vienna airport on Wednesday before leaving for the Islamic
republic.
Fruitless meetings
But ISNA said, without giving a source, that "for
now no inspection or visit" for the IAEA team of Iran's nuclear
infrastructure or "other sites" was on the agenda. It did not
elaborate.
Thursday's talks are the latest in a string of fruitless
meetings this year between Iran and the IAEA, with the latest in August in the
Austrian capital.
One Vienna diplomat said that the team in Tehran is
larger than in past visits in February and in May, and now included two
"technical experts" who could conduct verification work at Parchin -
if invited to do so.
Iran denies seeking or ever having sought the bomb and
has refused the IAEA access to Parchin, saying that as a non-nuclear site the
agency has no right to conduct inspections there.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Ramin Mehmanparast said on
Tuesday the visit would focus on discussions regarding "Iran's nuclear
rights as well as its peaceful nuclear activities."
But "certain issues that have possibly become a
source of concern for [IAEA] officials can also be discussed," he said,
without being more specific.
Hoping for agreement
Subject to international sanctions, Iran rejects as
baseless suspicions by Western governments and echoed by the IAEA that it
intends to develop a nuclear weapons capability under the guise of its energy
programme.
Tehran stresses that IAEA demands to examine Parchin
exceed Iran's obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to
which it is a signatory.
The inspectors' visit also came against the backdrop of
renewed efforts by world powers engaging Iran over its nuclear programme to
discuss possible dates and venues for a new meeting to resolve the dispute.
The P5 + 1 - the US, Russia, China, France and Britain
plus Germany - are hoping to agree with Iran "rapidly" on a new
meeting, a spokesman for EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said in
Brussels.
