TEHRAN, April 8: UN atomic watchdog inspectors on Saturday visited a key nuclear facility in Iran ahead of a visit by IAEA chief Mohahamed ElBaradei to persuade Tehran to prove its atomic programme is peaceful. Mr ElBaradei’s visit, due to begin within the next two days, is his first to the country this year and comes amid growing international pressure on Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities.

“The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will visit Iran either tomorrow or the day after it and the trip is within the framework of Iran’s cooperation and consultation with the IAEA,” a senior Iranian nuclear negotiator told the state news agency IRNA.

He added: “Mr ElBaradei will hold talks with a number of Iranian officials during his stay and Iran’s outstanding issues with the IAEA will be discussed.”

For their part, the IAEA inspectors began their work by visiting the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, after arriving in Tehran on Friday.

“Five inspectors ... will (also) go to … the conversion facility in Isfahan,” said the vice-president of the international affaires of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Saeedi.

However, Iran’s representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh, played down the importance of the inspections, saying that the visit was ‘routine.’

It was not related to a United Nations Security Council resolution which required Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment related activities by the end of April, he said.

On Friday, a diplomat with the agency said Mr ElBaradei would on his visit ‘meet with senior officials for discussions related to outstanding safeguard verification issues and other confidence building measures requested by the IAEA board of governors.’

“This visit will provide Iran an opportunity... to come forward with information required by the IAEA to fill in the gaps in the history of Iran’s nuclear activities,” he said.

“He’s not going there to negotiate any settlement. His going there is part of an ongoing verification process and this requires face to face contact,” the diplomat added.

“He is going the extra mile to make the Iranians understand what is required for compliance,” he said. —-AFP