IAEA chief inspector to visit Iran

Spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi announced that a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency to be headed by chief inspector Tero Varjoranta is due to visit a uranium ore concentrate processing plant and a uranium mine in Iran next week. "IAEA Deputy Director General Tero Varjoranta, who also heads the international body's inspectors, will travel to Iran next week to visit Saghand (uranium mine in Yazd province, Central Iran) and Ardakan (yellowcake production - uranium ore concentrate processing - plant in Central Iran)," Kamalvandi told FNA on Tuesday. He said that the visit will take place in line with a joint agreement signed on November 11 by Head of the AEOI Ali Akbar Salehi and IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano on mutual cooperation. Kamalvandi said that an IAEA delegation had also traveled to Iran a few days ago within the framework of cooperation between Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog. Noting that Iran and the IAEA officials have had reciprocal visits in recent months, he said, "Issues related to the six-paragraph and the seven-step procedural agreements signed by Iran and the IAEA were the main subject of these negotiations." The remarks came after the UN nuclear watchdog said on Monday its chief inspector had held "informal" talks in Tehran. The IAEA gave no details about the previously unannounced visit of Varjoranta to the Iranian capital. He went to Tehran "at the end of last week for informal talks as part of regular contacts between the agency and Iran," IAEA Spokesman Serge Gas said in an email to Reuters. Gas said Amano would "provide an update on developments" in Iran to the UN agency's 35-nation board of governors in a few weeks' time, an apparent reference to a quarterly report due in May. The visit took place in line with a joint agreement signed between the AEOI and IAEA. The agreement allows the IAEA inspectors to voluntarily visit Arak heavy water plant in central Iran and Gachin mine in Bandar Abbas. Iran announced in late January that inspectors of the IAEA had paid a visit to Gachin uranium mine in Southern Iran. The inspectors of the IAEA also visited Arak heavy water facilities in December.