Tehran, March 9, IRNA - A delegation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Tehran early Monday to hold technical talks with senior Iranian nuclear officials.




The five-member team is headed by Tero Varjoranta, IAEA Deputy Director General and head of the Department of Safeguards.


Negotiations between Iran and the UN nuclear agency will be held in Tehran in the presence of representatives from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The visit comes days after Iran’s envoy to the IAEA Reza Najafi said Tehran is prepared to allow IAEA inspectors to visit a site in western region of Marivan.

He said on Thursday that Tehran had already told IAEA to visit the site to disprove allegations of large-scale experiments on explosives but the international body rejected the offer.

Najafi said the agency cannot cover up its mistake regarding false accusations against Iran by simply rejecting the country’s offer, stressing that Tehran has repeatedly dismissed the accusations as baseless and fabricated.

A 2011 IAEA report claimed that it had information indicating large-scale high-explosive experiments at the site, which is located more than 700 kilometers west of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

On November 20, 2014, Najafi said Iran will, on a “voluntarily basis,” give the Vienna-based IAEA access to the Marivan site.

Iran has been cooperating with the IAEA as part of efforts to provide more transparency on the country’s peaceful nuclear program on a voluntary basis.

The last technical meeting between the two sides was held in November.

Iran has agreed to gran the IAEA access to the sites that the agency claims need to be investigated in order to clarify outstanding issues.

By IRNA