Iran on Friday confirmed having reached an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on renewed inspections by the agency of the country's heavy-water reactor at Arak, currently under construction, dpa reorted. "Iran has allowed IAEA inspectors to visit the Arak reactor in the near future," Iran's IAEA envoy Ali-Asqar Soltanieh told the ISNA news agency. Soltanieh predicted that one inspection should suffice for the IAEA inspectors to be assured of the peaceful nature of the plant. Access to the Arak plant in central Iran, the first visit scheduled for end of July, was one of the agreements reached during the two-day negotiations between IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen and Iranian nuclear officials in Tehran. The UN nuclear watchdog had been denied access to the site after Iran unilaterally cancelled an inspection agreement with the IAEA. The 40-megawatt reactor in Arak, which is to replace five megawatt light-water research reactor in Tehran, was inaugurated in August 2006 and scheduled to become operational in 2009. According to Iranian officials, the reactor would mainly be used for medical research purposes.
