IAEA Chief Hopeful about Positive Outcome of Visit to Iran

"I hope the coming meeting will produce concrete results on how we move forward to resolve all outstanding issues to ensure that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes," Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano said at Vienna airport on Sunday before departing for Iran.

"We are coming to a very important point," he added.

Amano arrived in Tehran at the invitation of Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi.

Tehran and the UN nuclear agency wrapped up a round of technical nuclear talks at the headquarters of IAEA in Vienna, Austria, on October 29.

After the two-day negotiations -- the 12th round of such meetings since January last year – the two sides issued a joint statement in which they described the discussions as substantive.

Meanwhile, sources have reported that Amano is likely to sign a framework agreement between Iran and his agency during his stay in Iran.

Speaking in Vienna on Sunday, Amano also noted that he aimed to build on a new proposal made by Iran last month that included "practical measures to strengthen" cooperation between the two sides.

Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, Reza Najafi, is charged with leading the Iranian team in talks with the UN nuclear agency.

And in relevant remarks on November 7, Salehi had announced that Tehran was optimistic about the 13th round of talks with IAEA.

The Iranian nuclear official, however, refrained from answering a question on whether the top IAEA official would visit the Iranian nuclear sites.

“The IAEA had already accepted the peaceful nature of a major part of our nuclear activities during the time of Mr. Larijani and Mr. Jalili and what has remained now is a series of alleged studies which need to be dealt with," said Salehi.