IAEA officials to visit Iran for talks: Iranian atomic chief

TEHRAN, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami announced on Wednesday that the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and accompanying officials will travel to Tehran for talks.

"Negotiations between Iran and the IAEA are still ongoing to reach a concrete and workable plan," Eslami told the official IRNA news agency.

Referring to the recent start of uranium enrichment to the purity of 60 percent at the Iranian Fordow nuclear facility, Eslami said that "political pressures and extensive sanctions have no effect, and if the three European countries (Britain, France and Germany) and the United States are looking to prove their good intentions and intend to return to their unfulfilled commitments, the solution is to adhere to the same document (of 2015 nuclear deal)."

The AEOI on Tuesday announced that it started to enrich uranium to 60-percent of purity at the underground Fordow nuclear plant located near the northern city of Qom, as part of its retaliatory measures against a recent anti-Iran resolution passed by the Board of Governors of the IAEA.

The old centrifuges at Fordow are also being replaced with modern IR-6 ones, the AEOI added.

Meanwhile, the 60-percent uranium enrichment continues at the Natanz nuclear facility in central Iran, it noted.

Last week, IAEA's Board of Governors passed the resolution proposed by the United States, Britain, France, and Germany that called on Iran to cooperate with the agency's investigators regarding the alleged "traces of uranium" at a number of its "undeclared" sites. Iran has rejected all the allegations.