Eurasia Press & News
UN nuclear watchdog chief Yukiya Amano arrived in Tehran on Monday as world powers pressed efforts to clinch a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme following failed negotiations in Geneva.
“I really hope that today we will produce concrete results,” said Amano ahead of a meeting with Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s nuclear chief.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Amano was quoted as saying on English channel Press TV, “is committed to resolve all outstanding issues to ensure Iran’ nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes”.
The IAEA conducts regular inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but it also wants to investigate possible Iranian efforts before 2003, and possibly since, to develop a nuclear weapon.
In particular it wants to visit the Parchin military base southeast of Tehran, where intelligence evidence suggests Iran may have carried out weaponisation research.
Iran denies seeking or ever having sought nuclear weapons, and says the claims are based on faulty intelligence from agencies such as CIA and Israel’s Mossad.
Diplomats have insisted they are closing in on an agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program despite the failure to clinch a long-sought deal in marathon negotiations in Geneva at the weekend.
