By DPA
Tehran : Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ended four days of technical talks here, the results of which are to be compiled in a report and presented to the IAEA board of governors later this month, Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) reported Friday.
Iran’s deputy chief nuclear negotiator Javad Vaeidi said the two sides were satisfied with the course of the 16-hour talks and termed them as constructive.
The IAEA team was headed by its deputy chief Olli Heinonen and the Iranian side by Vaeidi, who is deputy to Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeid Jalili.
The talks were focussed on P1 and P2 centrifuges. Iran’s centrifuges are mainly believed to be the P1 type but Tehran has also been seeking to operate the more advanced P2 types for enrichment purposes.
Vaeidi said that Iran replied to all outstanding IAEA questions and there would be no more technical talks until the IAEA board of governors meet Nov 22.
Iran and the IAEA agreed in August on a plan of action which aims at removing all technical queries by the IAEA over Iran’s nuclear projects and at the same time prepare the ground for political talks between Jalili and European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
The United Nations Security Council member states plus Germany are to hold discussions in London Friday on further sanctions against Iran. It is, however, expected that any decision would be taken after the IAEA report and talks between Jalili and Solana.
According to the IAEA, Iran has fewer than 2,000 centrifuges working in its Natanz nuclear plant, with a further 650 installed but not yet operating. Iran claims to have already installed more than 3,000 but is refraining from disclosing how many are operating.
Iran says its nuclear programmes are for civil and peaceful purposes, with enrichment levels at a maximum of only five percent to produce nuclear fuel for its reactors.
But world powers fear that Iran might use the very same process, but at a higher enrichment level, to make atomic bombs.
The West also argues that as Iran has no nuclear reactors yet – and the joint plant with Russia in southern Iran is not yet completed – the country had no imminent need for nuclear fuel and hence no justification for uranium enrichment.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Thursday reiterated that Iran would not retreat from its nuclear course and was not afraid of new UN resolutions, either. He also warned EU states of “economic consequences” if they joined the US sanction plans.