Reuters – Oct 3, 2014 – A high-level U.N. nuclear watchdog team will visit Tehran for talks in coming days, Iran said on Friday, more than a month after it missed a deadline for addressing questions about its suspected atomic bomb research.
Diplomats told Reuters on Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was expected to make a new attempt soon to advance its long-running investigation into Iran’s nuclear program and that a meeting might be held in the Iranian capital early next week.
Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador to the Vienna-based U.N. agency, said the IAEA delegation would be led by the head of its division dealing with nuclear safeguards issues, Deputy Director General Tero Varjoranta.
Western officials say Iran must step up cooperation with the IAEA if it wants to reach a broader diplomatic deal with world powers that would end a decade-old nuclear dispute and gradually end crippling financial and other sanctions on the oil producer.
Early last month, the IAEA said Iran had failed to answer questions by an agreed Aug. 25 deadline about two areas of the investigation into alleged research activities that could be applicable to any attempt to make nuclear bombs – explosives testing and neutron calculations.
While the powers seek to limit the size of Iran’s future nuclear program – and thereby extend the time it would need for any attempt to accumulate fissile material for a weapon – the IAEA is investigating alleged research and experiments in the past that could be used to make the bomb itself.