Iran opens new talks with nuclear watchdog

  New talks between the UN nuclear watchdog and Iran began Friday, with the IAEA expected to push Tehran to allow its monitors access to a military base near the capital. Western powers and Israel suspect Iran of trying to develop a bomb under the cover of a civilian nuclear programme, a charge denied by Tehran which says it is developing civilian atomic power and making medical isotopes. On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency's chief inspector Herman Nackaerts and deputy director general Rafael Grossi were meeting with Iran's ambassador to the agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh. The IAEA is especially interested in access to the Parchin military base near Tehran, where it believes suspicious explosives testing has been carried out. After a visit to Iran on May 21, agency chief Yukiya Amano said the two sides were close to a deal that would allow inspectors greater access to sites, people and documents tied to Iran's nuclear programme. But earlier this week, he hinted that a deal might still be a ways off. Meanwhile, the agency has said that new satellite imagery indicated "extensive activities" at the base, which some experts see as signs of a clean-up. The IAEA-Iran talks come ahead of a new meeting between Tehran and the so-called P5+1 group -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, in Moscow on June 18-19. Talks with the six powers were revived in Istanbul in April and they met again in Baghdad in May, though little was achieved. Barring progress in Moscow, an EU oil embargo against Iran will come into force on July 1, adding to a range of sanctions imposed under UN resolutions.