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IAEA inspectors to arrive Tehran Saturday

Iran Materials 28 January 2012 06:33 (UTC +04:00)
A team of IAEA inspectors will arrive in Tehran for a three day official visit on Saturday.
IAEA inspectors to arrive Tehran Saturday

A team of IAEA inspectors will arrive in Tehran for a three day official visit on Saturday, IRNA reported

The IAEA team led by chief inspector Herman Nackaerts and the Vienna-based body's number two, Rafael Grossi is scheduled to start its three day negotiation with Iranian officials from Sunday.

Tehran has invited the IAEA Deputy Director General for Safeguards Herman Nackaerts to travel to Iran before the last IAEA governing council meeting.

Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh in an interview with IRNA said that Tehran hoped the three-day trip would 'resolve any ambiguity and show (our) transparency and cooperation with the agency.'

'This trip is aimed at neutralizing enemy plots ... and baseless allegations, and proving the peaceful nature of our nuclear activities,' Soltanieh added.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Davos Forum, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Chief Yukiya Amano told the reporters, "The high-level team leaves Friday and starts work tomorrow."

"We hope they (Iran) will take a constructive approach. We hope that there will be substantial cooperation.

"We are requesting that Iran clarifies the situation. We proposed to make a mission and they agreed to accept the mission.

"The preparations have gone well but we need to see what actually happens when the mission arrives."

Director General of the IAEA Yukiya Amano, in a statement referring to dispatching a team from the agency to Tehran late January, underlined that he is committed to constructive cooperation with Iran.

In the statement issued on Saturday, Amano discussed different issues concerning Iran and added that one of his priorities in the year 2012 is to create international confidence on Iran's nuclear program.

Amano said that a team from the agency under leadership of deputy director general in safeguard affairs Herman Nackaerts will visit Tehran late January.

He said he is confident that Iran will respond to IAEA's proposals with a constructive spirit.

Speaking to reporters earlier, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said that the onus was on Iran to prove its good intentions.

"There is no other alternative to addressing this crisis than peaceful resolution through dialogue," Ban said in Davos.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has insisted that Tehran is not dodging negotiations and was ready to sit down with world powers - Britain China, France, Russia, the United States, and Germany for talks.

Previous talks held a year ago in Istanbul ended without progress.

Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.

Tehran has dismissed the West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing those sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.


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