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Top UN inspectors in Iran for nuclear talks

By Agencies
Updated Friday, 24 February 2012 19:02:39 - IST (UTC +5:30)

Tehran: Senior UN inspectors arrived in Iran on Monday to push for transparency about its disputed nuclear programme, a day after Tehran responded defiantly to tightened EU sanctions by halting oil sales to British and French companies.
Iran denies Western allegations that it is covertly seeking the means to build nuclear weapons and has again vowed no nuclear retreat in recent weeks, but also voiced willingness to resume negotiations with world powers without preconditions.
The five-member team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, led by its global inspectorate chief Herman Nackaerts, planned two days of meetings in another effort to extract answers from Iran regarding intelligence suggesting its declared civilian nuclear programme is a facade for developing bombs.
Nackaerts said on departure from Vienna that he wanted "concrete results" from the talks. His delegation was expected to seek, among other things, to question Iranian nuclear scientists and visit the Parchin military base believed to have been used for high-explosive tests relevant to nuclear warheads.
But Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi dampened speculation about such visits when he told the student news agency ISNA that the IAEA officials would not be going to any nuclear sites. "No. Their work has just begun," Salehi said.
DIPLOMATIC IMPACT
Diplomats doubted that the talks would bring a breakthrough.
"I believe most are rather sceptical concerning the outcome because, well, Iran had a chance at the last meeting and didn't seize it," a senior Western official said, referring to the last trip by the senior IAEA team to Tehran at the end of January.
Referring to last week's announcements by Iran of new nuclear advances, he said: "They send out the wrong signals that Iran is really willing to cooperate... We will wait and see what will come out of this meeting but we should be prepared that Iran might try some technical steps ... to appear cooperative without really providing the necessary cooperation."
The outcome of the discussions will have diplomatic repercussions because it could either deepen a stand-off that has stoked fears of war or provide scope to reduce tensions.
The European Union enraged Tehran last month when it decided to slap a boycott on its oil from July 1. Iran, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the main Gulf oil shipping lane, in retaliation and the United States signalled it would use force to keep it open.
The spiking tension has put upward pressure on oil prices.
On Sunday, Iran's oil ministry announced that it had stopped selling oil to French and British companies
Deputy Oil Minister Ahmad Qalebani suggested the Western crackdown would backfire, saying that in targeting Iranian oil the West had achieved only a surge in crude prices from $103 a barrel to $120, "and it will reach $150".
In remarks carried by the official news agency IRNA on Monday, Qalebani also said that if other EU states continued "their hostile behaviour towards Iran, we will cut our oil exports to those countries ... Fortunately demand for Iran's crude has not decreased. Instead it has increased."
The European Commission says the EU would not be short of oil if Iran stopped crude exports as it has enough stock to meet the bloc's needs for around 120 days. Industry sources said European oil buyers were already making big cuts in purchases from Iran months in advance of EU sanctions taking full effect.

Tags: Agencies UN, Iran, Inspectors

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