Iran, IAEA exchange extra information on Tehran’s nuclear program

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran and the United Nations atomic agency exchanged additional information about Tehran’s past nuclear work on Monday, March 9, and will meet again next month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Tuesday, but there was little sign of a sudden breakthrough, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Talks between Iran and the IAEA are aimed at clearing up questions on whether Iran’s past work was linked to nuclear weapons research. U.S. and European officials have said progress is needed in the IAEA discussions to help seal a separate nuclear agreement between Iran and six major powers on Tehran’s future nuclear activities.

An IAEA team led by Tero Varjoranta, the agency’s deputy chief, held a day of technical meetings with Iranian officials on Monday, the IAEA said in a brief statement.

The agency said the two sides “exchanged further information” on two sets of questions the IAEA has raised about Tehran’s past nuclear work.

“The Agency and Iran agreed to meet again in mid-April 2015,” the IAEA said. That is after the end-March deadline for Iran and six powers to seal the outline of a final nuclear agreement which would place restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for easing sanctions.

In remarks after returning to Vienna from Tehran, posted by the IAEA, Varjoranta said the April round of talks would take place in Tehran. He said he hoped at that point Iran would come forward with new areas of its past nuclear work the two sides could discuss. Iran was originally supposed to do this last September.

The IAEA official welcomed Monday’s talks, saying it was a “first indication” that Iran was willing to accelerate the discussions. But he signaled much work remained.

“As I mentioned it is highly technical. If you want to characterize progress as continuing exchanging information on those complicated things, then we can say that it was progress in that respect,” he said.

It wasn't clear whether the IAEA still has outstanding questions on the explosives and neutron calculations work. In the past, the agency has said it would not tick off any single issue once discussed but wants to gain a broad picture of all the questions raised before reaching a conclusion on Iran’s activities, the Journal notes.

Iranian officials have said previously that they had answered the agency’s questions. The government has also invited the agency to visit Marivan, a region where it has allegedly carried out high-scale explosives tests, an offer the agency has so far declined.

Iran has separately denied or restricted the agency’s access to a key military site in Iran. The agency has asked Tehran to give better access to scientists and documents related to past nuclear work.

The website of Iran’s state-run Press TV quoted Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Reza Najafi telling reporters on Monday that the two sides agreed “to accelerate cooperation.”