Monday, January 24, 2005

Iran may allow UN new visit to military base-report

Reuters:
Iran may allow U.N. inspectors back into a military base where Washington says tests linked to a covert atomic weapons programme could have taken place, a senior Iranian official was quoted as saying on Monday.

After several months of delay, Iran earlier this month let a team from the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) take environmental samples at the Parchin military base southeast of Tehran.

But IAEA inspectors did not get the full access to the site they wanted and would like to return to take further samples, diplomats in Vienna said.

Asked whether the inspectors would be allowed back into Parchin, Hossein Mousavian, one of Iran's chief nuclear negotiators, said: "I cannot rule this out."

"The IAEA had earlier asked to inspect two parts of the Parchin complex but only visited one part," the Web site of the state-owned Iran daily newspaper quoted him as saying. more