Iran, IAEA hold new round of talks

TEHRAN,May 15(MNA)-- Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency held a new round of talks over Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna on Wednesday. Iran’s Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh led the Iranian delegation in the talks and IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts was the head of the UN nuclear agency’s delegation. The talks were held at Iran’s diplomatic mission in the Austrian capital. “Differences remain but we ... are determined to solve these issues,” Nackaerts told reporters before the talks, according to Reuters. Soltanieh also told Reuters on Monday that Iran expected progress would be made in talks with the UN nuclear watchdog. “We have the meeting with the expectation of progress of course,” Soltanieh said. “We are serious in these talks.” Wednesday’s talks in Vienna were the 10th round of negotiations between Iran and the IAEA since early 2012, so far without any agreement for further investigation into Iran’s nuclear program. Western officials accuse Iran of stonewalling the IAEA, and of seeking to restrict the ability of UN inspectors to carry out their investigation the way they want. Iran says the demands for access to certain sites go beyond its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that the allegations against it are based on forged intelligence. 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 Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran and the six powers - the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia, and China - failed to break the diplomatic impasse in their last meeting, held in early April in Kazakhstan. The IAEA’s immediate priority is to visit the Parchin military base. It suspects explosives tests relevant to nuclear weapons may have taken place there, perhaps a decade ago, and then been concealed. Tehran denies the accusation. Iran says it must first agree with the IAEA on how the investigation should be carried out before allowing such access.