The head of the UN nuclear surveillance agency pressed Iran over inspections during a visit to Tehran on Monday that was being closely watched ahead of wider nuclear talks between Iran and world powers later this week.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano kicked off his day of meetings with Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, the official in charge of Iran’s nuclear energy programme. After the talks, Abbasi Davani’s Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation issued a statement saying that issues were raised “in a frank manner and proposals were made to remove ambiguities and to develop cooperation.” It did not elaborate.
Amano made no immediate comment. He was to hold separate discussions with Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi. Before leaving on the Iran trip, Amano said he aimed to build on “good progress” made last week between lower-ranking IAEA and Iranian officials in Vienna.
The outcome of his visit was seen as an indicator of Iran’s willingness to allay international suspicions of nuclear weapons research.
Those questions were to be raised on Wednesday in Baghdad talks between representatives of Iran and of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany, the so-called P5+1.
The Baghdad talks are to supposed to address some of the major concerns about Iran’s nuclear activities and related sanctions imposed by the West and the UN, following an ice-breaking session in Istanbul last month that ended a 15-month hiatus.
The very fact Amano himself was in Tehran on Monday — on his first trip to Iran since taking the helm of the IAEA — raised speculation that the Islamic republic could grant the IAEA access to a key military installation, Parchin, outside Tehran, for the first time in seven years.
But Amano, while avoiding giving any details of what he was to discuss, stated on leaving Vienna that “nothing is certain.” While he was conducting the trip in a “positive” mindset, he underlined: “This visit is very short, and I’m not an inspector.”
Tehran this year rebuffed repeated requests from IAEA chief inspector Hermann Nackaerts to send a team to verify Western intelligence information suggesting Parchin could have hosted explosives testing for nuclear warheads in a special metal chamber.
