Story highlights
NEW: Negotiators from Iran, EU and the U.S. met to talk Thursday
NEW: French FM Laurent Fabius will Friday in Vienna tomorrow around midday
The United Nations’ top nuclear watchdog said Iranian authorities are continuing to deny his agency access to a sensitive military complex suspected of being a site of nuclear activities.
Yukiya Amano, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged Iran on Thursday to be more cooperative with the agency and “provide timely access to all relevant information, documentation, sites, material and personnel.” The agency has been trying to get access to Iran’s Parchin military site for years.
“Iran has not provided any explanations that enable the Agency to clarify the outstanding practical measures, nor has it proposed any new practical measures in the next step of the Framework for Cooperation, despite several requests from the Agency,” Amano told the agency’s board of governors in Vienna on Thursday.
The IAEA chief’s comments come just days before a Nov. 24 deadline for the U.S. and five world powers to reach an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program.
Amano, whose agency is not a direct party in the closed-door negotiations, said he hopes the talks will have a “positive outcome” but would not speculate on whether an agreement can be reached by the Monday deadline.
Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday that the U.S. would not accept just “any agreement with Iran.”
“It has to be an agreement that works,” he said, adding that an accord would need to ensure that Iran has no pathways to a nuclear bomb.
Kerry met Thursday with negotiators from Iran and EU to help further the ongoing negotiations with Iran, known as the P5+1 talks that have the U.S., U.K., France, China, Russia and Germany working with Iran to achieve an accord. French FM Laurent Fabius will arrive in Vienna on Friday to continue the talks.