Iran, IAEA likely to start talks next week on visit to Tehran

Iran's Residing Representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh said he is slated to meet with IAEA chief nuclear inspector in Vienna in the first week of January to arrange a visit to Iran as soon as possible. "As soon as the holidays are over we will sit down with (Herman) Nackaerts and arrange the visit," Soltaniyeh told AFP. "As far as we are concerned, his team can come as soon as they are ready," Soltaniyeh said, adding that the meeting would happen in the first week of January and that the visit could take place later the same month. He said Iran had renewed an earlier invitation despite its "disappointment" that inspectors had not visited ahead of a November IAEA report on Iran's nuclear activities. "Once again we have decided to show political will and our good intentions to cooperate with the IAEA in order to demonstrate transparency about the exclusively peaceful nature of our activities," the envoy said. He added that he wanted the visit by inspectors to ensure that "past mistakes are not repeated... and to end this endless process once and for all." Last month Israel and the United States dictated a report to IAEA Chief Yukiya Amano on Iran to find a pretext for intensifying pressures and war rhetoric on the Islamic Republic. Once the report was released, not only Iran, but also many world countries, including Russia, China and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) member states, strongly rejected it and blasted the UN nuclear watchdog chief for acting as a White House proxy. Iran also said that it would not budge "an iota" from its peaceful atomic activities.