Iran confirmed on Tuesday it had invited some ambassadors accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna to visit nuclear facilities in the Islamic Republic.
Those invited included representatives from the six countries engaged in nuclear talks with Tehran – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and its political arch foe the United States – as well as the EU and the Non-Aligned Movement to visit the sites, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told a news conference.
Mehmanparast called the move a sign of goodwill that would act as proof that Iran is conducting its nuclear work transparently.
"The new move of inviting the ambassadors of different countries to visit our nuclear facilities has once again shown the goodwill of our country regarding cooperation [with the IAEA] and [Iran’s] peaceful nuclear activities," he said.
Mehmanparast said the visit would take place before the next round between Tehran, and the permanent UN Security Council members – the U.S. Russia, China, Britain, France – plus Germany.
That meeting is tentatively set for Istanbul, Turkey in late January. Mehmanparast said that the visit to the nuclear sites would probably take place on January 15 or 16.
ran’s envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog said the ambassadors to the
Vienna-based agency had been invited to visit the country’s
enrichment site at Natanz and the heavy water reactor at Arak.
The two sites are at the heart of Iran’s nuclear dispute with the West.
"Ambassadors, being the heads of the geographical and political groups, are invited to visit our nuclear sites, particularly in Natanz and Arak," he said.
"This is in the line of our transparent nuclear policy," Soltanieh added.
China confirmed receiving an invitation, but declined to say whether it had agreed to send a representative.
The international talks on its nuclear program are being conducted amid fears that it is aiming to build weapons. Iran has denied the charges, saying its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes only.
The upcoming meeting in Istanbul is meant to explore whether there is common ground for more substantive talks on Iran’s nuclear program, viewed by the U.S, and its allies as a cover for secret plans to make nuclear arms – something Tehran denies.
Instead, the Islamic Republic insists its uranium enrichment and other programs are meant only to generate fuel for a future network of nuclear reactors.
Diplomats from delegations at the table with Iran during the December talks in Geneva said Tehran made no commitments to talking about UN Security Council demands that it freezes uranium enrichment – which can turn out both fuel and fissile warhead material. And Iranian negotiators flatly ruled out discussing such demands at the Istanbul meeting.
International worries are great because Tehran developed its enrichment program clandestinely and because it refuses to cooperate with the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency probe meant to follow up on suspicions that it experimented with components of a nuclear weapons program. Tehran denies such work.
Iran’s offer to visit comes more than three years after six diplomats from developing nations accredited to the IAEA visited Iran’s uranium ore conversion site at Isfahan, which turns raw uranium into the feedstock gas that is then enriched. Participants then told reporters they could not make an assessment of Iran’s nuclear aims based on that visit to that facility in central Iran.
But the new offer appeared more wide ranging, both as far as nations or groups invited and sites to be visited.
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