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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