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No progress in nuclear inspection talks with Iran: IAEA

Xinhua, June 9, 2012

• No progress was made in talks with Iran to finalize a deal on allowing greater access to its disputed nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Friday.

  "There has been no progress," said Herman Nackaerts, the IAEA Deputy Director General for Safeguards, after talks here with Iran's envoy to the IAEA Ali-Asghar Soltanieh.

  "This is disappointing," he said.

  No date for a follow-on meeting on the matter had been fixed, he added.

  The IAEA had been pressing Iran for a deal that would allow its inspectors immediate access to Iran's Parchin military site southeast of Tehran.

  Media said the IAEA has received reports that Iran had tested explosives which could be used to set off a nuclear charge.

  Iran denied such reports, and insisted access to Parchin would only be granted if Iran and the IAEA agree on certain conditions and steps.

  "We are ready to remove all ambiguities and prove to the world that our activities are exclusively for peaceful purposes and none of these allegations (of seeking a bomb) are true," Soltanieh told reporters.

  "But we need time and patience and a quiet environment" for talks, he said.

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