IAEA delegation due in Iran soon

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast says an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delegation will visit the Islamic Republic in the near future. “An IAEA delegation, headed by a deputy director general of the agency, will trvel to Iran soon and this [visit] is in line with Tehran's continued cooperation with this international body,” Mehmanparast said at his weekly press conference in Tehran on Tuesday. He added that the visit would take place upon an invitation from Tehran and indicates the country's goodwill and transparency in its nuclear activities. The Iranian spokesperson stated that talks are currently underway to determine the exact date of the visit. In December 2011, Iran renewed an invitation to IAEA inspectors to visit the country's nuclear sites in line with Tehran's efforts to address any international concerns on the nature of its nuclear program, which Iran insists is peaceful. The invitation comes after IAEA chief Yukiya Amano withdrew a previous offer to visit Iran earlier in 2011, under the pretext that Tehran had refused to address the agency's specific concerns. Despite the rhetorical and widely publicized claims by Washington and Tel Aviv and some of their European allies that Iran's nuclear program may include a military aspect, Iran insists that its nuclear program is a civilian one aimed at generating electricity and radio-isotopes for cancer patients. Tehran argues that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.