Amano did not specify the focus of talks coming Friday between officials from his agency and a senior Iranian envoy. But in the context of his remarks it was clear that IAEA negotiators would press Iranian officials, including it's ambassador to IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, to finalize an agreement on restarting his agency's investigation after a more than four-year pause.
Iran strenuously denies any interest in developing nuclear weapons, insisting that all of its atomic activities are under IAEA purview and meant purely to power reactors and for medical research.
But its critics note that the Islamic Republic refuses to stop enriching uranium, which can be turned from nuclear fuel into the fissile core of warheads, despite offers of reactor fuel from abroad and increasingly tough international sanctions.
In meetings with agency officials, Tehran also has stonewalled repeated IAEA requests for a resumption of its probe, dismissing intelligence cited by the agency of secret weapons work as fabricated by the United States and its allies and declaring the issue closed.
At stake in IAEA and other international efforts to engage the Islamic Republic is the threat an Iran armed with nuclear weapons could pose to its neighbors. The United States and Israel have indicated readiness to attack Iran if diplomacy and sanctions fail to curb its alleged nuclear program. Both suspect that Iran is aiming to build nuclear weapons, and Israel believes it would be a prime target.
Amano suggested his agency is not seeing everything it would like to, in opening comments to a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board.
"Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation to enable the agency to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities," he said.
Amano went to Tehran two weeks ago to try to wrap up a deal on restarting his probe and expressed confidence on his return that agreement was near, citing a senior Iranian official as telling him so. He invoked that promise in his comments to the IAEA's 35-nation governing board on Monday, telling them: "I was assured that agreement . . . would be expedited."
Urging Iran to sign and implement the deal as soon as possible, he also appealed for quick access to a site at Iran's Parchin military site southeast of Tehran that the IAEA suspects is being cleansed of evidence of secret nuclear weapons-related testing.
