PREVIEW: IAEA's second effort for diplomatic solution over Iran

Feb 19, 2012, 9:53 GMT

Tehran - A high-ranking inspection team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is due in Tehran Monday for the second time within a month to seek a diplomatic solution to the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme.

An earlier visit by the team, headed by IAEA chief inspector Herman Nackaerts, did not appear to achieve the results hoped for by the United Nations nuclear agency, although Iran termed the talks positive and constructive.

The main issue, clarification of the alleged military dimensions of Tehran's nuclear programme, reportedly remained unsolved.

Iran has so far rejected charges which the IAEA draws from Western intelligence reports that it is conducting a secret weapons programme. Tehran is expected to again reject the allegation during the second visit.

There have been contradictory accounts as to whether inspections of nuclear sites would be allowed.

While Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said the team could visit all the sites they wanted too see, diplomats in Vienna said the IAEA requests had been denied.

Observers however believe that the aim of Nackaerts and his team is not so much to inspect the already known sites - which are all under IAEA supervision - but to ask about sites not yet known to the IAEA though mentioned in Western intelligence reports.

Iran is unlikely to give any information about such sites: any reply would contradict claims over the last 10 years that the country had no secret sites.

Tehran has however declared its readiness to resume talks with six world powers over the nuclear dispute and is reportedly discussing a date and venue with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Talks with the six - Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the United States - are not expected to bring any breakthrough as long as Iran is unwilling to accept the main demand by the powers, suspending its uranium enrichment.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has not only rejected once again any suspension, but also attended a ceremony last week inaugurating new nuclear projects.

These are uranium enrichment to the 20-per-cent level at the Natanz site in central Iran, use of a new type of centrifuge capable of a far higher enrichment speed than previous models and insertion of Iran's first home-made nuclear fuel rods into the Tehran medical reactor.

Ahmadinejad said that the latest projects were a message that Iran would not bow to Western pressures and threats, but would decisively pursue its nuclear rights.

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