Iran, IAEA have agreed to meet on May 21: reports

TEHRAN,April 23(MNA) – Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have agreed to hold a new round of talks over Iran’s nuclear program on May 21 in Vienna, Iranian news agencies reported on Monday. Iran’s Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh will head the Iranian delegation in the talks and IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts will lead the IAEA delegation. Last week, a diplomatic source told Reuters that a meeting in May was a possibility, but that no date had yet been fixed. It would be the 10th round of negotiations between the two sides since early 2012, so far without a deal. The IAEA-Iran talks are separate from, but closely linked to, broader diplomatic negotiations between Tehran and six world powers aimed at resolving the decade-old dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran denies Western allegations that it is seeking to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons, saying its atomic activities are aimed at generating electricity. The last round of IAEA-Iran negotiations was held in Tehran in February. After the end of the talks, Soltanieh said that Iran and the UN nuclear agency had agreed on some points of a new modality for cooperation. “In addition to resolving some disagreements and agreeing on some points of the text of the modality, it was agreed that the two sides would present their views about the new proposals, which were put forward during the talks, in the next meeting,” he said.