VIENNA — The head of the UN nuclear agency says he cannot guarantee that all of Iran's nuclear activities are peaceful unless Tehran provides more cooperation with his organization.Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is also urging Tehran to grant his inspectors access to a site where the IAEA thinks Tehran may have carried out experiments linked to nuclear weapons development. Iran denies any work on, or interest in nuclear weapons. The agency has tried for more than a year to visit the Parchin site, to follow up suspicions that Tehran worked there on conventional explosives triggers for a nuclear weapon. Amano told the 35-nation IAEA board Monday that without more Iranian cooperation, his agency "cannot conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities." The Vienna-based IAEA has been trying for more than a year to persuade Iran to cooperate with a long-stalled agency investigation into suspected atom bomb research by the Islamic state, which denies any such activity. Amano said the agency remained committed to engaging in constructive dialogue with Iran, but that negotiations must proceed with "a sense of urgency and a focus on achieving concrete results" soon. The IAEA's priority is to be able to inspect Parchin, a sprawling site southeast of the capital Tehran, where it believes Iran built an explosives chamber to carry out tests, possibly a decade ago. Iran denies this. "Providing access to the Parchin site would be a positive step which would help to demonstrate Iran's willingness to engage with the agency on the substance of our concerns," Amano said, according to a copy of his speech. – Agencies
