UN Nuke Chief to Tehran
Local Editor
With a key deadline approaching, the head of the UN nuclear agency is leaving for Tehran Saturday for high-level meetings.
Diplomats had said Friday that Yukiya Amano of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency was planning such a trip.
Confirming Amano's trip, IAEA spokesman Fredrik Dahl said that Amano would arrive Sunday for meetings aimed at "clarifications of past and present outstanding issues" linked to the agency's probe.
The trip is significant. Amano is traveling less than a month before an Oct. 15 deadline to gather information on allegations that Iran tried to build atomic weapons.
A final UN assessment is due in December, and that will feed into the larger July 14 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, helping to determine whether sanctions on Iran will be lifted.
Iran denies any work on - or interest in - nuclear weapons. It says IAEA suspicions are based on false intelligence from the United States, "Israel" and other adversaries. In refusing access to scientists the agency is interested in, Iran cites past assassinations of several experts it says worked on peaceful nuclear programs.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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