Iran, IAEA kick off new round of talks in Vienna

Following the busy diplomatic traffic in New York on the occasion of the 68th UN General Assembly Meeting, Iran resumed fresh talks with the UN atomic agency, at their 11th meeting but the first since President Hassan Rouhani's election. In seek of agreement on the structured approach document to resolve outstanding issues relating to Iran's nuclear programme, IAEA chief inspector Herman Nackaerts and Political Advisor Rafael Grossi attended the meeting on behalf of IAEA while Iran's permanent representative at the UN Vienna Office Reza Najafi headed the Iranian delegation.

"This is the first meeting so nobody I guess should expect that in just one day meeting we can solve our problems," Reza Najafi told reporters.

Iran and the IAEA last met in Vienna on May 15, which was the 10th of its kind and presided by former Iranian envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog agency, Soltaniyeh, and IAEA deputy Director-General Herman Nackaerts.

So far, diplomats say, there are no signs that the IAEA will any time soon be granted the access it has requested, for example to the Parchin military base where it suspects that Iran carried out nuclear-related explosives tests a decade ago.

The IAEA regularly inspects Iran's nuclear activities and every quarter its reports outline a continued expansion in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.

Western countries want the IAEA to keep a closer eye on Iran to better detect any attempt to "break out" and produce highly-enriched uranium for an atomic bomb.

But the focus of Friday's negotiations was the IAEA's wish for Iran to address allegations that before 2003, and possibly since then, it carried out a research work into making an actual nuclear weapon.