IAEA experts in Iran not to visit nuclear sites

TEHRAN - Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are in Iran for holding talks with Iranian officials, not for visiting the country's nuclear sites.

The high-ranking IAEA delegation which arrived in Tehran on Monday are holding talks with Iranian officials to develop the framework for the future cooperation between Iran and the UN watchdog, Mehmanparast told reporters in his weekly press briefing.

Referring to the members of the IAEA delegation as experts, not as investigators, he said that their later reports about the current talks with Iranian officials may affect the next round of negotiations over Iran's nuclear issue.

"Iran's cooperation with the agency (IAEA) is at its best level," he said.

A high-ranking IAEA delegation, headed by chief inspector Herman Nackaerts, arrived in Tehran on Monday for two-day talks on the relevant issues of Iran's nuclear program.

In January, the IAEA sent a high-level team to Iran for the first round of talks with the country's officials over nuclear issues. Iran's media reported that the delegation, headed by Nackaerts, did not visit or inspect any nuclear site in Iran. The spirit dominating the three-day talks was "positive and constructive," Iran's official IRNA news agency said.

Asked about the next round of nuclear talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany (G5+1), Mehmanparast said Monday that no final agreement has been reached over the time and venue of the talks. The two sides should also finalize a framework for the talks, he said.

He added that a number of issues, including Iran's nuclear program, will be in the agenda of the upcoming talks between Iran and the world's major powers.

The Iranian spokesman reiterated that Iran will not deal with the powers over its "nuclear rights" which the West suspects as having weaponry dimensions. Iran claims that its nuclear program is for "peaceful" purposes.

Mehmanparast said that the world powers should recognize the rights of the Islamic republic to possess nuclear technology for civilian use.

On Sunday, Iran's Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said that the next round of nuclear talks between Iran and the G5+1 would be held in Istanbul, Turkey.

Salehi did not refer to the timing of the talks but said that, in a recent letter to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili has announced Iran's readiness for the resumption of the talks "as soon as possible" and Iran was ready for the response of the G5+1.

Salehi said the Islamic republic was "ready for the worst scenario" in the face of Western threats, adding that "the West should choose interaction with Iran rather than confrontation" over the country's controversial nuclear program.

"Western countries, as a whole, will amend their policies toward Iran," he said.

Salehi reiterated Tehran's determination to move on with its "peaceful" nuclear program, saying that "Since we believe that we are right, we do not have the slightest doubt in pursuing our nuclear program."

"Therefore, we plan to move ahead with vigor and confidence and we do not take much heed of (the West's) propaganda warfare," he added.

Nuclear talks between Iran and the G5+1 in Istanbul in January 2011 failed to reach any agreement as Tehran rejected any notion of suspending uranium enrichment in exchange for trade and technology benefits, as called for by several UN Security Council resolutions passed since 2006.