UN team in Iran over nuclear transparency

Tehran, July 11: A team from the UN nuclear watchdog led byits second-in-command arrived in Tehran today seeking details aboutIran's offer to answer unresolved questions about its disputed nuclearprogramme.

Iran has offered to draw up an ''action plan'' to addresssuspicions its nuclear programme has military goals. Tehran insists itsaims are purely civilian but faces the prospect of more UN sanctionsfor failing to convince world powers.

Olli Heinonen, deputy director of the UN International AtomicEnergy Agency (IAEA), is heading the delegation which is expected tohold talks with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and hisdeputy Javad Vaeedi.

''A technical, legal and political delegation of the International Atomic Energy Agency, headed by Olli Heinonen, ...

arrived in Tehran today morning,'' the official IRNA news agency reported.

The United States and its European Union allies wonder whetherIran's offer of transparency is anything more than an exercise to buytime and avert further UN measures.

The UN Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions onIran since December for failing to halt uranium enrichment, the part ofTehran's programme that most worries the West because it can make fuelfor power plants or bomb material.

World powers are now considering a third round of sanctions.

The IAEA wants explanations for traces of highly enriched -- bomb-grade -- uranium found on some equipment.

It also wants to know more about experiments with plutonium, thestatus of research into an advanced centrifuge able to enrich uraniumthree times as fast as the model Iran now uses, and documents showinghow to cast uranium metal for a bomb core.

IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei has said the Iranian offer oftransparency combined with a slowdown in uranium enrichment work hasraised hopes of defusing the row.

Reuters

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