UN delegation to enter discussion with Iran over country’s nuclear programme

A nuclear agency team from the United Nations will visit Iran later this month.

The move came after Tehran indicated it is ready to discuss allegations it is involved in secretly developing nuclear weapons.

There have been suggestions from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that such a trip could happen, but this is the first time Iran appears to be willing to take part in such talks.

The officials will visit Tehran on 28 January.

For more than three years, Tehran has blocked IAEA attempts to follow up on intelligence alleging covert Iranian work on nuclear arms, dismissing the charges as baseless and insisting all its nuclear activities were peaceful and under IAEA supervision.

Faced with Iranian stonewalling, the IAEA summarized its body of information in November, in a 13-page document drawing on 1,000 pages of intelligence. It stated then for the first time that some of the alleged experiments can have no other purpose than developing nuclear weapons.

Iran continues to deny the charges and no change in its position is expected during the Tehran talks with IAEA officials. But even a decision to enter a discussion over the allegations would be a major departure from outright refusal and creates hope of future progress in the investigation.

Two diplomats told the Associated Press that Iranian officials had suggested they were ready to talk about the issue during recent meetings with officials of the Vienna-based IAEA.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s chief IAEA delegate, declined to be drawn on what would be discussed in Tehran.

The composition of the IAEA team, as described by one of the diplomats, also reflects the significance the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency attaches to the visit, which is expected to conclude in the first few days of February.

Normally such trips are made by Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts, in charge of the Iran nuclear file, and more junior officials of his department. But the diplomat said that this time Nackaerts will be accompanied by Assistant Director General Rafael Grossi, the right-hand to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano, and Peri Lynne Johnson, the agency’s senior legal official.