IAEA says Iran nuclear deal reached

The UN’s top nuclear official is expressing concern that Iran may be secretly continuing work on nuclear weapons. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano told The Associated Press that his agency has indications of such activities both “in the past and now.” Iran denies secret weapons work and even the United States — which provides much of the intelligence on Iran to the agency — said in 2007 that Tehran had suspended all meaningful weapons development by 2003.

VIENNA, Austria — Senior UN investigators trying for more than a year to restart a probe into Iran’s alleged work on nuclear arms chose their words carefully Tuesday about hopes for success as they left for Tehran on a trip that sets the stage for separate talks between six world powers and the Islamic Republic. Iran insists it has never tried to develop nuclear arms — an assertion underlined by the Foreign Ministry in Tehran as the UN team of International Atomic Energy Agency experts prepared to board the flight bound for the Iranian capital.

One of Britain's biggest companies has made millions of pounds selling goods to Iran, including to a state-owned firm that supplies the regime's nuclear programme. Glencore, a commodity trading house run by the billionaire Ivan Glasenberg, traded $659m (£430m) of goods, including aluminium oxide, to Iran last year, the Guardian has established.

Iran has delivered its response to the queries raised by the Vienna group over a nuclear fuel swap deal proposed by Brazil, Turkey and the Islamic republic, state television's website reported on Monday.Iran's response was handed to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano in Vienna by Tehran's envoy to the UN atomic watchdog, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the report said quoting Soltanieh."The letter was delivered to the director general of the IAEA Mr Amano at 2pm Vienna time," Soltanieh said.

UN atomic watchdog chief Yukiya Amano expressed "great regret" Monday at Iran's decision to bar key inspectors from the country, saying it hampered the agency's investigation of Tehran's nuclear programme."I learned with great regret about Iran's decision to object to the designation of two inspectors who recently conducted inspections in Iran," Amano told the 35-member board of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran is not cooperating sufficiently with the UN atomic watchdog in its investigation into the Islamic republic's contested nuclear activities, agency chief Yukiya Amano has said."The agency continues ... to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, but we cannot confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities because Iran has not provided the agency with the necessary cooperation," Amano said in his opening address to the IAEA's board of governors.