Iranian officials and a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) started a fresh round of talks on Monday in Tehran to resolve remaining issues about Tehran's nuclear work, the official IRNA news agency reported.

 

The new talks are expected to focus on questions about the source of contamination with weapons-grade uranium found by IAEA inspectors at Tehran's Technical University.

 

In August, Iran and the IAEA reached an agreement for Tehran to clarify the outstanding ambiguities over its nuclear program.

 

The UN nuclear watchdog has stated that issues about Iran's P1and P2 centrifuges for uranium enrichment and its experiments with plutonium had been answered by Tehran.

 

Director General of the IAEA Mohamed ElBaradei last month said in his latest report on Iran's nuclear program that Tehran had provided "sufficient" cooperation to the agency to clarify its open issues related to uranium enrichment activities.

 

But the report also pointed out that, contrary to the demand of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, Iran still did not suspend its uranium enrichment related activities.

 

The United States and some other Western countries have been alleging that Iran may try to develop atomic bombs under a civilian cover. But Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

 

Two rounds of UN Security Council sanctions have already been imposed on Iran for failing to heed a UN demand that it halt uranium enrichment.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2007)