Iran said it will give the UN nuclear watchdog access to its Parchin military complex, ISNA news agency reported today, a site where the agency believes Tehran pursued high explosives research relevant to nuclear weapons.
An International Atomic Energy Agency report last year said that Iran had built a large containment chamber at Parchin, southeast of Tehran, to conduct explosives tests that are "strong indicators" of efforts to develop an atom bomb.
The IAEA requested access to Parchin during high-level talks in Tehran in February, but the Iranian side did not grant it."...Parchin is a military site and accessing it is a time-consuming process, therefore visits cannot be allowed frequently ... We will allow the IAEA to visit it one more time," Iran's diplomatic mission in Vienna said in a statement, according to ISNA.
It did not give a date for such a visit.
Western suspicions about activities at Parchin date back to at least 2004, when a prominent nuclear expert assessed that satellite images showed it might be a site for research and experiments applicable to nuclear weapons.
IAEA inspectors did in fact visit Parchin in 2005 but did not see the place where the UN watchdog now believes the explosives chamber was built.
The IAEA named Parchin in a detailed report in November that lent independent weight to Western fears that Iran is working to develop an atomic bomb, an allegation Iranian officials deny.
Agency chief Yukiya Amano said Iran has tripled its monthly production of higher-grade enriched uranium and the UN nuclear watchdog had "serious concerns" about possible military dimensions to Tehran's atomic activities.
Meanwhile, the EU also offered to restart negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme seeking a "full settlement" of the clash that has pushed up oil prices and raised the specter of war in the Middle East.
In a statement on behalf of China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged Saeed Jalili, Iran's nuclear envoy, to meet her to seek an accord in which Iran would clarify questions about the programme.
Ms Ashton responded in a letter to an Iranian overture last month to restart talks. The renewed prospect of negotiations to dial back concerns about Iran's programme came hours after US President Barack Obama called for more time to let diplomacy and sanctions solve the standoff.
Mr Obama spoke yesterday following talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in Washington to seek support for a more aggressive approach to Iran.
"Our overall goal remains a comprehensive negotiated, long-term solution which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," Ms Ashton said in the letter, released today in Brussels
Reuters