TEHRAN – Iran and the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency agreed on Monday on a plan to give IAEA inspectors access to a uranium mine and a heavy water plant.The pact was signed in Tehran by IAEA director Yukiya Amano and the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi.
Based on the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran has signed, the document is “a roadmap for cooperation that determines mutual steps to resolve remaining issues,” Salehi said during a joint press conference with Amano.
Tehran’s willingness to grant access to the Gchine mine and the heavy water plant near Arak ends a nearly two-year impasse with the IAEA.
“It was agreed that Iran and the IAEA will cooperate further with respect to verification activities to be undertaken by the IAEA to resolve all present and past issues,” the parties said in a joint statement.
Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, was elected in June after pledging to work to resolve the dispute with the West over the Iranian nuclear program.
Israel and some Western nations say they suspect Iran is seeking the capability to make nuclear weapons, while Tehran insists the purposes of the program are strictly peaceful.
Talks in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 group – Britain, France, the United States, Russia and China plus Germany – on a broad solution to the nuclear issue ended over the weekend without agreement, though negotiations are set to continue.
The IAEA has never found evidence that Iran is diverting nuclear materials for military purposes and the most recent estimate from the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Tehran is not pursuing nuclear weapons
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