VIENNA: Iranian nuclear energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi said he had agreed new terms of cooperation with the UN atomic watchdog regarding the agency’s investigation into Tehran’s nuclear activities, a top Iranian official said here on Tuesday.
The IAEA did not comment immediately on the deal which coincides with a diplomatic thaw between Iran and world powers, signaled by a plan for talks on Oct. 1, and which was prompted by rising concern about Iran’s drive for nuclear capability.
Salehi declined to say what the new cooperation entailed but it would not cover the IAEA’s probe into intelligence reports suggesting Iran covertly researched nuclear weapon designs. Iran has said the reports are fabricated and the issue is closed.
“We managed to come to an agreement to set a new framework for better and deeper cooperation in the future,” Salehi told reporters, summarizing talks with IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei during an annual meeting of the agency’s 150 member states.
“Details will be revealed at the proper time. We hope we will be witnessing in the future improved cooperation (with the IAEA). And we think the international environment is also very conducive to this issue...”
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who has headed the Western negotiating effort with Iran, told reporters in Brussels the talks will likely be held in Turkey.
Solana said Western policy remained “twin track” — to offer incentives to Iran to abandon a nuclear program the West suspects is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, while holding out the threat of further sanctions. But he said now was not the time to talk about fresh sanctions.
“At this point in time we are going to try to enter into negotiations,” he said. “Let’s talk about that.”
Solana, who has been representing the six powers — the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia — in long-running efforts to resolve the row with Iran, was cautious when asked how much he thought the new talks could achieve. But he urged Tehran to take advantage of stepped-up US engagement in the talks process under the administration of President Barack Obama.
In another development, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday Iran is ready to hold “constructive talks” with six world powers next month after it submitted new proposals regarding its disputed nuclear program.
“The Iranian ‘package’ reflects a desire to have ‘deep and constructive talks’ with the Six,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said in a statement.
