El Baradei to step up pressure on Iran

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Mohamed ElBaradei wants Iran to immediately and unconditionally sign, ratify and implement an additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

That would grant his inspection teams the power to make surprise visits to suspect facilities. At present, Iran is only obliged to accept pre-arranged visits to sites it chooses to declare.

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Official sources said ElBaradei was to spend much of the morning in talks on the thorny issue with Iran's atomic energy chief and Vice President Gholam-Reza Aghazadeh.

He is also due to meet Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi.

Although natural resource-rich Iran has fiercely denied US allegations that its atomic energy programme is merely a cover for a top-secret bid to acquire nuclear weapons, officials are so far showing no sign of buckling to the international demands.

This comes despite mounting alarm in Washington over the nature of the programme and Iran's ballistic missile development, especially following the announcement here Monday that a missile capable of hitting Israel had been successfully tested and deployed in the armed forces.

And on Tuesday, US Senator Sam Brownback -- a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- warned that Iran may succeed in producing a nuclear weapon within little more than two years.

This followed fresh allegations from a an exiled Iranian opposition group that Iran has two secret nuclear sites that have not been declared to the IAEA.

But Iranian officials are expected to tell ElBaradei that they see demands for more inspections as being driven by old arch-enemy the United States, and that while they have nothing to hide, their signing of the protocol can only come after lengthy talks that would bring an end to what they see as unfair treatment.

According to the terms of the NPT, signatories are obliged to provide mutual assistance in peaceful nuclear technology. Only Russia is helping Iran's power project near the southern city of Bushehr.

In an exclusive interview with the hardline Jomhuri Eslami newspaper published Wednesday, powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said Iran would show cooperation with the IAEA, but did not say whether that meant signing the additional protocol.