Iran, atomic watchdog start new round of talks in Vienna

Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have started a new round of negotiations in the Austrian capital, Vienna. Iran's Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh and the agency's Deputy Director General and Head of the Safeguards Department Herman Nackaerts and the consultant of Director general Yukiya Amano, Rafael Grossi opened the talks on Wednesday. The ongoing talks are the 10th round of the negotiations between Iran and the IAEA over Tehran's nuclear energy program since early 2012. "We will make efforts that the talks end with an agreement and I am hopeful that we achieve an positive result," Nackaerts said before the meeting. Soltanieh made no comments before the talks. IAEA suspects Iran that the Islamic state carries out experiments to produce weapons-grade fissile material at the Parchin facility. Iran denies that it is trying to develop nuclear weapons, arguing that it is entitled to develop a civilian nuclear energy generation program under the non-proliferation treaty, of which it is a signatory. Diplomatic sources said Amano will present at an executive meeting in early June a report that the agency had information that Iran's nuclear program reached a military dimension. Sources also said that Iran's strategy was to use talks to gain time before the June executive meeting of IAEA.