UN nuke official plans another trip to Iran

PanARMENIAN.Net - The chief UN nuclear inspector declared that there was still "a lot of work" to be done on his return Wednesday, February 1 from a trip to Iran, as the Tehran government confirmed his team visited no atomic sites, AFP reported.

Herman Nackaerts told reporters that his team had had a "good" visit which was organised in the wake of a damning report by the UN's atomic watchdog on Iran's nuclear ambitions and was planning to return soon.

"We had three days of intensive discussions about all our priorities. We are committed to resolving all the outstanding issues and the Iranians said they are committed too," Nackaerts said at Vienna airport.

"But of course there is still a lot of work to be done, and so we have planned another trip in the very near future," said Nackaerts, one of six-person International Atomic Energy Agency team to visit Iran.

"We had a good trip ... I will now go back to headquarters and inform the DG (IAEA director general Yukiya Amano) about the mission," he added, declining to comment further.

The visit took place against a backdrop of heightened tensions following the publication in November of an IAEA report that significantly raised suspicions Iran had done work on developing nuclear weapons. The United States, the European Union and others have since ramped up sanctions to target Iran's oil industry and central bank. Tehran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global crude shipments.