The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday he is hopeful of reaching a concrete result with Iran on concerns about the Islamic Republic's nuclear program during their next talks.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday he is
hopeful of reaching a concrete result with
Iran
on
concerns about the Islamic Republic's nuclear program during their next talks.
The "IAEA is...having a dialogue with
Iran
[on]
May 14 and 15. I hope that next time we can produce concrete result,"
Yukiya Amano, the IAEA's director general, told an audience at the St. Gallen
Symposium. He said the level of cooperation with
Iran
on
inspecting nuclear facilities hasn't been sufficient enough.
The IAEA said late February that it "continues to have serious concerns
regarding possible military dimensions to
Iran
's
nuclear program." Its concerns reflect suspicions by the
U.S.
and
its European allies that
Iran
is
seeking a nuclear weapons capability under the cover of its civilian atomic
program.
Those suspicions are the focus of separate talks between Iran and the P5+1
group, comprising the five permanent United Nations Security Council members
plus Germany, which were revived this month in Istanbul, and which go to a new
round in Baghdad, May 23.
The last such discussions, in early February, ended in impasse when an IAEA
team visiting
Tehran
said
it had been repeatedly refused permission to inspect the Parchin military site
near
Tehran
.
The U.N. agency said it had information suggesting experiments on nuclear
warhead design had been carried out there, in areas not inspected during a 2005
visit.
Iran
says
it is under no obligation to allow access to Parchin because the site isn't a
declared nuclear activities facility.
Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, Amano said there is more
willingness from
Iran
to
engage in talks about the international community's concerns over its nuclear
program but that it hasn't yet had a positive response from
Iran
with
regard to the IAEA's request to inspect Parchin.
"We will take up this issue," in the next talks with
Iran
,
Amano said. "We need to solve all the outstanding issues but Pachin is the
priority and we need to start with that."
Separately, he said that he wouldn't be surprised if
North
Korea
were to conduct a third
nuclear test in the near future. However, he noted that he didn't have any
specific information or inspectors on the ground to corroborate such a view.
Fears are mounting that
North Korea
's
leadership may conduct a third nuclear test after conducting such tests in 2006
and 2009.
On April 13, a much-vaunted missile launch to celebrate the 100th anniversary
of
North Korea
's
founding leader Kim Il-Sung misfired.
Amano said he was also hopeful that there would be progress in the six-party
talks regarding
North Korea
's
nuclear ambitions that broke down in December 2008.
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