The head of the United Nations nuclear agency says he expects Iran to sign an agreement "quite soon" to allow inspections of facilities suspected of being used in a covert nuclear weapons program.

“I can say it [the agreement] will be signed quite soon,” said Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “I cannot say how soon that will be, in a few days that will be clarified.”

Amano’s comments came after returning to Vienna from a brief visit to Iran where he met chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. Amano said he and Jalili made a “decision to reach an agreement” on U.N. access to Iranian sites including the Parchin military complex.

Western powers suspect Iran has engaged in atomic weapons research at the site. Tehran says Parchin is a conventional weapons facility and insists the Iranian nuclear program is peaceful.

Israel sees a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to its existence and refuses to rule out military action against the Iranian nuclear program. Israeli Cabinet minister Matan Vilnai dismissed the prospect of an imminent IAEA agreement, saying Tuesday that Israel has to be “suspicious of Iran all the time” due to what he called Tehran’s record of deceit.

Differences remain

Amano said some differences remain between the IAEA and Iran on the nuclear issue and he is not sure when they will be resolved. But he also said Jalili assured him those differences will not be an obstacle to a deal.

Amano said that any agreement would involve U.N. access to sites, scientists, and documents it seeks to restart its probe.

Representatives of six world powers are preparing to meet with Jalili in Baghdad on Wednesday to try to negotiate a separate agreement for Iran to stop producing highly-enriched uranium that could be converted quickly to nuclear bomb material.

It is not clear how Amano’s apparent progress with Iran on IAEA inspections will affect the Baghdad negotiations on enrichment.

Acting U.S. envoy to the IAEA Robert Wood said Washington remains “concerned” by what he called Iran’s “urgent obligation” to cooperate fully with the U.N. nuclear agency in resolving suspicions about the nature of the Iranian nuclear program.

The United States also has refused to rule out a strike on Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the six world powers negotiating with Iran to avoid concessions and to show “determination and not weakness” in the Baghdad talks.

Pressure on Tehran

Malcolm Grimston a nuclear energy expert at the London-based research group Chatham House, said international pressure on Iran could be forcing Iran to a compromise.

“I think a combination of the international sanctions against Iran, which have been quite painful, and coupled I guess with a fear of military action, particularly from Israel if they don’t get properly involved in negotiations, may be a motivating factor at present,” he said. “Ultimately we will only know the answer to these things when we see the outcomes.”

But Grimston warned that the latest development could also be part of what he calls a long line of stalling tactics on the part of Iran.

“All my instincts are that this is going to be yet another round in a process that has been going on for some years now of Iran making apparent offers then backing down from them or the offers, when they materialized, not being what was really required in the first place,” Grimston said. “And all the time it’s buying time for the Iranian program.”

Grimston says even if Iran does allow an investigation into Parchin, this would not resolve the overall question of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“I think the only thing that could prove that would be for Iran to stop enriching uranium and to accept the many offers from the international community to provide them with enriched uranium for the legitimate uses for their research reactor and for their power reactors but for them to dismantle the technology that would allow them to take it further up to weapons grade,” he said.

Source: VOA News