Nuclear watchdog strikes deal with Iran

Iran agreed on Monday to sign a deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency to allow inspectors to monitor more of the country’s nuclear sites, including a new reactor. 

On Sunday, the IAEA chief traveled to Tehran as part of an effort to facilitate a peace deal on Iran’s nuclear program, separate from P5+1 negotiations in Geneva. 

This “roadmap” for inspectors, according to multiple reports, could help move forward talks in Geneva. 

Representatives from the U.S., Germany, France, Russia, Britain and China failed to reach a deal with Iran over the weekend.

“The practical measures will be implemented in the next three months, starting from today,” United Nations nuclear chief Yukiyo Amano said in a news conference in Tehran, according to the Associated Press.

{mosads}Inspectors are now permitted to visit the new Arak heavy water site and the Gachin uranium mine in Iran.

Israel claims Iranians plan to produce nuclear weapons using alternative methods at the Arak site. It won’t be in operation until the end of 2014, Reuters and Israeli newspaper Haaretz report.

Israel suspects the Arak site would be used to build a plutonium-based nuclear weapon. Right now, however, Iran doesn’t have the technology to separate the element from the reactor byproducts, the AP says.

Iran’s Parchin military facility, which the agency has previously tried to investigate, was not included in the IAEA deal, according to the AP report. Inspectors have suspected explosive tests were conducted there as part of Iran’s nuclear program. Iran has rejected those accusations, but won’t open the site.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani expressed a few months ago he has no intentions to produce any nuclear weapons as president.