Monday, January 3, 2011

Iran 'invites foreign diplomats to nuclear sites'

Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, file pic Diplomats will be shown Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, reports say
Iran has invited foreign diplomats to tour its nuclear facilities, according to reports.
The invitation, which has not been confirmed by Tehran, comes ahead of fresh talks with key world powers over Iran's controversial nuclear programme.
Delegates from Russia, China and the EU are among those invited, but not the US, AP news agency reported.
Many Western countries suspect Iran is developing nuclear weapons but Tehran says its programme is peaceful.
A senior European diplomat in Brussels told Reuters news agency that Iran had invited several ambassadors accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit its nuclear sites.
The Associated Press said it had seen a letter in which senior Iranian envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh suggests the weekend of 15-16 January for the tour.
Bushehr and Natanz were the venues to be toured, the agency added, citing a diplomat accredited to the IAEA.
Tehran is already subject to inspections by the IAEA but it would appear that this tour may be aimed at diplomats not inspectors, says the BBC's Iran correspondent James Reynolds.
A new round of talks between Iran and the five permanent UN Security Council members - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - plus Germany, is tentatively set for Istanbul, Turkey, in late January.
The talks will follow a two-day meeting in Geneva early last month which EU foreign affairs chief Baroness Ashton described as "substantive".
The UN Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran and demanded that it stops its uranium enrichment programme.
Uranium can be enriched to make nuclear fuel or be more highly enriched and used in nuclear weapons.
Iranian negotiators have flatly ruled out discussing such demands at the Istanbul meeting.

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