IAEA top delegation likely to visit Iran late January

A top-level delegation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is likely to visit Iran late January, diplomats said. A senior diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that a top-level IAEA mission could fly to Iran in late January if Tehran agrees to meet the agency's calls to supply information on its nuclear work. Western diplomats said on Monday that Iran reinstated an invitation offer for IAEA inspectors to visit the country after a previous invitation, issued in October, was rejected. "We're working on a possible visit," Gill Tudor, spokeswoman for the IAEA said on Wednesday without elaborating. The diplomat added that the visit would only take place if Tehran agrees to meet IAEA calls for supplying data on its nuclear work, but did not elaborate. It is expected that the mission would be headed by top IAEA investigator Herman Nackaerts, who was previously invited by Tehran for talks "aimed at a resolution of matters" ahead of the agency's report. However, following the circulation of Amano's controversial report to the IAEA's Board of Governors and the UN Security Council on November 8, Iran's Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh said the trip was postponed. Iranian officials have expressed numerous concerns about repeated efforts by the IAEA inspectors to leak data about Iran's nuclear program and scientist to foreign governments, leading to terrorist attacks against a number of Iranian nuclear scholars. The IAEA has reportedly ignored the Iranian concerns. The United States and the Israeli regime have repeatedly threatened Tehran with the "option" of a military strike. 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 diversion, Iran insists that its nuclear program has a merely civilian nature. 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.