Iran invites IAEA team over contested atomic plans

Vienna, June 25: Iran has invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to send a team to agree how to resolve questions about Tehran's contested atomic programme, the UN watchdog said today.

The gesture came after Iran's chief negotiator Ali Larijani, who agreed a ''plan of action'' for clearing up issues with IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei on Friday, returned for further consultations with ElBaradei yesterday, a brief statement from the Vienna-based agency said.

''The IAEA intends to send a team as early as practicable,'' the statement said.

A diplomat close to the IAEA said the invitation was the first concrete result of Friday's accord, which calls for the ''plan of action'' within two months defining how longstanding inquiries into the scope of Iran's programme will be settled.

But, asked whether the imposition of harsher UN sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its programme might undermine the IAEA-Iran deal, the diplomat said, ''Surely''.

The United States, Britain, Russia, France, Germany and China are discussing a third round of penalties against Iran over concerns it is secretly trying to build atomic bombs.

Iran says its campaign to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel is solely designed to generate electricity. But suspicions persist in the West since Iran hid sensitive nuclear research from the IAEA for almost 20 years and has stonewalled investigations since.

Larijani also met in Lisbon at the weekend with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who has been exploring how to bring about an Iranian nuclear suspension to pave the way for trade benefits offered Iran by world powers.

Solana and Larijani called their latest discussions constructive and good but they produced no breakthrough on Iran's core dispute with big powers its refusal to shelve enrichment-related activity.

Reuters

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