Iran Says Iaea Team Is Not for Inspection

The UN team of nuclear inspectors may stay longer in Iran. That's according to the country's Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, who made the comments on the sidelines of the 18th African Union summit in Ethiopia.

The inspectors are scheduled to leave Iran on Tuesday. Salehi said Tehran is optimistic about the outcome of the UN team's visit. But at the same time, Iran is threatening to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, if results are not as Iran hopes. The IAEA inspectors arrived in Tehran on Sunday to clarify aspects of Iran's nuclear program, as tensions and sanctions increase.

The UN team of nuclear inspectors may stay longer in Iran. That's according to the country's Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, who made the comments on the sidelines of the 18th African Union summit in Ethiopia.

The inspectors are scheduled to leave Iran on Tuesday. Salehi said Tehran is optimistic about the outcome of the UN team's visit. But at the same time, Iran is threatening to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, if results are not as Iran hopes. The IAEA inspectors arrived in Tehran on Sunday to clarify aspects of Iran's nuclear program, as tensions and sanctions increase.

TEHRAN, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Iran's permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali-Asghar Soltanieh said Tuesday that an IAEA team of experts will visit Iran at the end of January, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

A high-ranking delegation of the UN nuclear watchdog will visit Iran on Jan. 29-31, Soltanieh told Fars.

"This visit is an indication of transparency in the nuclear activities of the country and Iran's cooperation with IAEA," he was quoted as saying.

Last November, the board of the IAEA adopted a resolution on Iran's disputed nuclear program, calling for intensified dialogue to find solutions to unresolved issues.

However, Iranian officials have since been stressing that the IAEA resolution will not stop the country's nuclear program.

Earlier in January, the IAEA said in its latest report on Iran' s nuclear program that "credible" evidence showed that Iran had been seeking to obtain nuclear weapons, an allegation immediately rejected by Tehran, which called the report "imbalanced, non- professional and politically-motivated."

Last week, Soltanieh said all of the country's nuclear activities, including those at Fordo enrichment site, are under the supervision of the UN nuclear watchdog, adding that the agency has been monitoring all the activities in Fordo since two years ago.

Soltanieh said that the Islamic republic needs the 20-percent enriched uranium, to be produced in Fordo,