Iran to sign up to inspections deal tomorrow

Iran will sign up to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's Additional Protocol, tomorrow which allows snap inspections of its…

Iran will sign up to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's Additional Protocol, tomorrow which allows snap inspections of its nuclear sites a senior official said today.

"Iran will most probably sign tomorrow," said Iran's nuclear chief Mr Gholamreza Aghazadeh, talking to reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting.

Mr Aghazadeh said the protocol would be signed in Vienna, but did not say by whom. Vienna is the seat of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations.

The Iranian government gave the formal go-ahead last week for the country to sign up to the Additional Protocol after coming under pressure from Western countries to act to dispel US-led concern that Iran might be trying to produce nuclear weapons.

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Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful and that it is needed to meet booming domestic electricity demand and free up its hydrocarbon resources for export.

But it admitted to the IAEA in October that it had hidden a secret centrifuge uranium enrichment programme from UN inspectors for nearly two decades.