TEHRAN, Dec 9: A delegation from the UN nuclear watchdog arrived in Tehran on Sunday to tackle a new subject in ongoing talks over the controversial Iranian nuclear programme, the IRNA news agency reported.

The talks will broach the issue of uranium particle contamination at a technical university in Tehran, the third subject to be examined in the continuing discussions, the state-run agency said.

“An IAEA technical delegation arrived in Tehran on Sunday for talks over the source of contamination in a technical college. The talks with the Iranian side will start on Monday,” it said.

Iran has in recent months had several rounds of talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) focusing on outstanding questions over its nuclear programme.

The two sides have already held discussions about Iran’s past experiments with plutonium and its use of uranium-enriching P1 and P2 centrifuges. The source of contamination represents the latest chapter to be opened.

In August both sides agreed on a timetable for Iran to give more information over various areas of ambiguity in its nuclear programme. Despite four years of investigation, the IAEA has never been able to confirm if the drive is peaceful.

The Vienna-based watchdog said in a report last month that Iran had taken important steps in revealing the extent of its nuclear programme but was still defying UN demands that it suspend uranium enrichment.

It said it had sent written questions to Iran on the contamination issue on Sept 15 about the origin of the contamination, the nature of the equipment used and the names of the equipment involved.

The IAEA visit comes a week after a US intelligence report said Iran had halted a nuclear weapons programme in 2003, contradicting White House accusations that Tehran had an active atomic weapons drive.—AFP