TEHRAN, July 11: The UN atomic watchdog’s deputy head arrived in Tehran on Wednesday in a new bid to resolve the international standoff over Iran’s nuclear drive, with Western pressure mounting for more UN sanctions.

Olli Heinonen, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) deputy director general for safeguards, will seek to shape a plan to resolve “outstanding issues” over Iran’s nuclear programme during his two-day visit.

“We hope that these intensive and positive talks, which demonstrate a positive and fundamental step by the Islamic republic of Iran, bear fruit,” Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, said at the airport.

The visit comes just days after IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Tehran had slowed expansion of its uranium enrichment.

ElBaradei has said he is seeking a “time-out” in the crisis in order for the two sides to work towards negotiations that the United States says must include a full suspension of Iran's of enrichment activities.

The IAEA delegation, which includes legal, political and technical officials, will first meet Iran's national security chief and top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, Soltanieh said.

The officials will have in-depth discussions on Wednesday and Thursday with Larijani's number two and results will be made public at a press conference on Thursday.

However, Iranian officials said Heinonen will not be inspecting any nuclear sites, such as at the underground plant at Natanz in central Iran where uranium enrichment is currently carried out.

Oil-rich Iran insists its nuclear programme is aimed solely at making fuel for its growing energy needs and has so far refused to halt uranium enrichment as demanded by a series of UN Security Council resolutions.

Tehran’s refusal to address IAEA questions and its resumption of enrichment activities, which it had suspended for more than two years, prompted the world body to refer Iran to the UN Security Council in February 2006.

The council has since adopted three resolutions demanding that Iran suspend enrichment, and has imposed two sets of sanctions.

On Monday, a US think-tank reported that commercial satellite imagery indicated Iran is tunnelling into a mountain near the Natanz complex, possibly to protect the facility production against air attack.

Ahead of Heinonen’s visit, ElBaradei said that “drawing up a plan of action” should take 60 days. Implementation would then begin on resolving questions about Iranian nuclear activities that could have military applications.

“We have seen a fairly slow development in commissioning new cascades,” ElBaradei told reporters on Monday, referring to the installation of centrifuges which enrich uranium into fuel for civilian reactors or, in a highly refined state, nuclear bomb material.

ElBaradei, who met Larijani in June, has also called on Iran to freeze uranium enrichment at current levels, in return for the United Nations holding off on threatened new sanctions.

But Britain, France and Tehran's arch-foe, the United States, have insisted on a complete freeze of all enrichment activities.

Britain said it will press for a third UN resolution to tighten sanctions on Iran if it continues to defy calls to suspend enrichment, while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has refused to rule out military action.

“Iran needs to do everything to cool things down,” ElBaradei said on Monday, stressing the need “to shift from the mode of confrontation to the mode of goodwill and cooperation.”

—AFP