VIENNA (AP) After keeping away inspectors for two years, Iran is inviting the U.N. nuclear agency to a facility linked to a still unfinished reactor that could produce enough plutonium for up to two warheads a year.
Announcing the invitation Thursday, Yukiya Amano, who heads the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, said the IAEA will accept the offer to visit the heavy water plant in the central city of Arak. His announcement comes less than a week after a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers.
He also said his agency first learned that it would be tasked with supervising Iranian compliance with that deal as an agreement was struck over the weekend. Amano didn't give a date for when the IAEA would start implementing its role under the Geneva deal, but suggested that it would take some time, in part because his agency wasn't informed earlier to prepare for the mission.
The invitation for Dec. 8 is not part of the six-power deal, which commits Iran to freeze its nuclear program for six months in return for limited relief from economic sanctions. But it shows Tehran is starting to comply with separate commitments to open previously off-limits sites to IAEA inspectors.
The status of the Arak plant had been one of the major issues during negotiations leading to last weekend's agreement in Geneva.