(Adds Amano-Salehi meeting, Netanyahu, other detail, edits)
* Iranian TV quotes Amano as saying talks extensive and
useful
* Iran’s top negotiator expects future cooperation with IAEA
* Western diplomats: Iranian action, not promises, needed
By Fredrik Dahl and Marcus George
VIENNA/DUBAI, May 21 (Reuters) – The U.N. nuclear watchdog
chief held talks in Tehran on Monday ahead of a meeting between
major powers and Iranian officials this week, but there was no
immediate sign of a breakthrough in the tense confrontation over
Iran’s nuclear programme.
Yukiya Amano paid a rare visit to Tehran after voicing hope
of its agreement to cooperate with an investigation by his
International Atomic Energy Agency into what Western states
suspect are Iran’s efforts to develop atomic bomb capability.
Amano met the head of Iran’s nuclear energy agency,
Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, and its top nuclear negotiator, Saeed
Jalili, who will sit down in Baghdad on Wednesday with world
powers seeking overall curbs on Iran’s disputed atomic activity.
“(Monday’s) negotiations were very useful. We held expanded
and intensive negotiations in a good atmosphere,” Amano was
quoted as saying by the website of Iranian state television.
“Definitely, the progress of (these) talks will have a
positive impact on negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (six
major powers). Of course these are two different issues but they
can strengthen each other,” he said.
Asked about a framework agreement that would resolve
questions over the nature of Iran’s nuclear activity quickly,
Amano added: “I will not go into details but the agency has some
viewpoints and Iran has its own specific viewpoints.”
There was no indication that Iran had addressed Amano’s
overriding priority – a deal to obtain access for IAEA
investigators to Iranian sites, nuclear scientists and documents
needed to check intelligence suggesting that Tehran has pursued
covert research relevant to developing nuclear bombs.
There was no immediate comment directly from the IAEA, the
Vienna-based U.N. agency. Amano was due to return on Tuesday
morning, when he might make a statement.
“It doesn’t look like any significant breakthrough was
made,” a Western diplomat in the Austrian capital said.
Jalili said after the talks that Iran was “a serious
supporter of … global disarmament, confronting the spread of
nuclear weapons and the usage of peaceful nuclear technology for
(non-proliferation treaty) member states”, the television said.
“Today we have good negotiations with Amano on these three
fields and we hope to have good cooperation with the agency in
the future in these areas,” Jalili said.
State television said Amano later met Foreign Minister Ali
Akbar Salehi and “expressed happiness over Iran’s readiness to
continue cooperation with the agency”.
SCEPTICISM
Amano had scheduled Monday’s talks with Iran at such short
notice that diplomats said a deal on improved IAEA access might
be near. But few saw Tehran going far enough to convince the
West to roll back swiftly on punitive sanctions when Jalili
meets global power envoys in Baghdad on Wednesday.
“We are not going to do anything concrete in exchange for
nice words,” a Western diplomat said of the Baghdad meeting, the
outcome of a big power session with Iran in Istanbul last month
that ended a diplomatic freeze of more than a year.
Jalili will hold talks in the Iraqi capital with Catherine
Ashton, the European Union foreign policy chief heading a
six-power coalition comprised of the five U.N. Security Council
permanent members – the United States, Britain, France, Russia
and China – plus Germany.
By dangling the prospect of enhanced cooperation with U.N.
inspectors, diplomats say, Iran might aim for leverage in the
broader talks where the United States and its allies want Tehran
to curb work they say is a cover for developing atomic bombs.
Pressure for a deal has risen. Escalating Western sanctions
on Iran’s economically vital energy exports, and threats by
Israel and the United States of last-ditch military action, have
pushed up world oil prices, compounding the economic misery
wrought by debt crises in many industrialised countries.
But Iran’s official IRNA news agency quoted armed forces
chief Hassan Firouzabadi as saying Iran’s aim was the “complete
annihilation of Israel”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a speech on
Monday, said: “Iran threatens Israel, and peace throughout the
world.
“In the face of this evil intent, the leading nations in the
world must show force and clarity, and not weakness.
“They shouldn’t make concessions to Iran, they should make
sharp and unequivocal demands, to stop all enrichment of nuclear
material in Iran, to take out of Iran the nuclear material
enriched until now, and dismantle the underground nuclear
facility near the city of Qom.
“Only in this way can it be possible to ensure that Iran
won’t obtain a nuclear bomb.”
URANIUM ENRICHMENT
The U.N. watchdog is seeking access to sites, nuclear
officials and scientists and documents to shed light on work in
Iran applicable to developing the capability to make nuclear
weapons, especially the Parchin military complex outside Tehran.
Two meetings between Iran and senior Amano aides in Tehran
in January and February failed to produce any notable progress.
But both sides were more upbeat after another round of talks in
Vienna last week, raising hopes for a deal.
Such a deal would also not be enough in itself to allay
international concerns. World powers want Iran to curb uranium
enrichment, which can yield fuel for nuclear power plants or for
nuclear bombs, depending on the level of refinement.
Iran, to general disbelief from its Israeli and Western
adversaries, insists its nuclear programme is intended only to
generate electricity in a country that is one of world’s top oil
exporters and to produce isotopes for cancer treatment.
In Baghdad, the powers’ main goal is to get Iran to stop the
higher-grade uranium enrichment it started two years ago and has
since expanded, shortening the time needed for any weapons bid.
Iran says it needs uranium enriched to a fissile
concentration of 20 percent for its medical isotope reactor.
Enrichment to 5 percent of fissile purity is suitable for power
plant fuel, while 90 percent constitutes fuel for bombs.
A Western diplomat said Iranian cooperation on such issues
as IAEA access to Parchin was “important but not sufficient”.
“The 20 percent enrichment has to be addressed as a
priority,” the diplomat said.
The EU’s Ashton and diplomats from the six powers were
expected to meet in Amman on Tuesday to coordinate their
approach to the Baghdad talks.
(Additional reporting by Justyna Pawlak, William Maclean,
Patrick Markey, Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Ori Lewis, Dan Williams and
Zahra Hosseinian; editing by Andrew Roche)
