Iran to let atomic watchdog take more samples

TEHRAN, Nov 28 (Reuters) Iran today confirmed it would allow UN inspectors to take further environmental samples of research equipment linked to previous finds of highly enriched -- or weapons-grade -- uranium.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said it has questions about Iran's nuclear programme and wants answers before it can declare Tehran's aims are peaceful.

The West suspects Iran wants to make atomic bombs, a charge Tehran denies.

In a June report given to the UN Security Council, the IAEA said some environmental swipe samples taken from equipment acquired by an Iranian academic centre contained traces of highly enriched uranium.

The IAEA believes the equipment was earlier used at the Lavizan-Shian site, which was razed in 2004 before agency inspectors could examine it.

''Iran has accepted the agency's request to take further samples from the centre,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said, confirming the gesture originally announced by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei last week.

Iran has admitted that Lavizan-Shian, northeast of Tehran, was once a military research and development site but denied conducting any nuclear weapons research there or anywhere else in the country.

Tehran is not required to allow UN nuclear watchdog inspectors into sites it has not declared to be engaged in nuclear activities. But it says that by permitting such inspections, it wants to show its nuclear plans are peaceful.

ElBaradei said last week that Iran had also agreed to let agency inspectors examine operating records at its pilot uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. He called Iran's gestures on sampling and enrichment records ''steps in the right direction''.

But several analysts and diplomats who follow Iran's nuclear case closely told Reuters in Vienna the moves were mere gestures that did not represent a significant improvement in transparency by Tehran.

The Islamic state has been referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions after failing to heed a demand to halt uranium enrichment work, a process that can be used to make fuel for nuclear power plants or material for warheads.

Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, insists it only wants nuclear technology to generate electricity.

REUTERS SBA BST0110