VIENNA, 28 March 2004 — United Nations nuclear inspectors arrived in Iran yesterday, an IAEA spokeswoman said, in what is an ongoing investigation to determine whether Tehran is secretly developing atomic weapons, as Washington accuses it of doing.
The two-man IAEA team, which arrived early yesterday in Tehran after flying from IAEA headquarters in Vienna, visited the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, 250 kilometers south of Tehran.
The inspectors will also visit the Isfahan nuclear technology center, in what is a regular inspection on monitoring safeguards set up under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
More aggressive inspections are expected later in April, diplomats said.
Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Mohammed El-Baradei, is to visit Iran in early April to urge it to cooperate fully with international checks on its nuclear program, the watchdog’s spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said yesterday.
