BICOM

A delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is set to arrive in Iran today in an effort to make progress in monitoring the country’s atomic developments, while the P5+1 countries have taken steps to renew dialogue with Tehran on the issue.

IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts, who is heading the agency’s nuclear investigation, spoke to reporters before leaving Vienna for Tehran. He said that the main aim of the trip was to agree a long-sought framework regulating the IAEA probe, which Iran has long demanded and the IAEA and western powers fear is a delaying tactic to hold up the investigation. Nackaerts noted that there have been “negotiations for almost one year” on the issue. A continued delay would likely hamper any meaningful investigation of the Parchin facility southeast of Tehran, which the IAEA suspects has been used for nuclear development. Nackaerts commented, “We also hope that Iran will allow us to go to the site of Parchin… If Iran would grant us access, we would welcome that chance and we are ready to go.”

Meanwhile, according to an a Associated Press report, a European Union (EU) official in Brussels said that Helga Schmid, the deputy director of the EU’s diplomatic corps spoke by phone to Ali Bagheri, Iran’s deputy nuclear negotiator, to discuss possible dates and venues for another round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 powers, the United States, UK, China, Russia, France and Germany. The two sides have met previously on several occasions, most recently in June. However, they have far made little progress so far on a diplomatic formula to pacify western concerns over Iran’s atomic development, including high-level uranium enrichment that would be crucial to the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

Earlier this week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the issue of Iran’s nuclear programme is becoming ever-more pressing, saying “Iran is two and a half months closer to crossing this [nuclear enrichment] line and there is no doubt that this will be a major challenge that will have to be addressed next year.”