Tehran may allow snap nuclear inspections

GENEVA: Iran on Wednesday said it could allow for snap inspections of its nuclear sites as part of a new proposal to end a decade-long standoff with world powers, adding that fresh talks would take place “in a few weeks.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s announcement of a fresh round of talks came as negotiators from the EU-chaired P5+1 group — the US, Britain, France, China and Russia, plus Germany — pored over a proposal he and his team presented in Geneva a day earlier. “The continuation of the negotiations will be in Geneva in a few weeks,” Zarif wrote on Facebook.
“In the meantime, the P5+1 members will have the opportunity to (study) the details of Iran’s proposals and prepare actions they need to take,” he said. “Negotiations and reaching a resolution is difficult, and negotiating over details requires time and great deliberation.”
Details of the new proposal are being kept under wraps, but Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi told reporters on Tuesday it had the “capacity to make a breakthrough,” and all sides have noted the positive atmosphere of the talks.
Iran’s new plan contains three steps that could settle the nuclear dispute “within a year,” Araqchi has said, the first achievable “within a month or two, or even less.”
IRNA on Tuesday quoted Araqchi as saying that snap inspections of its atomic sites were not part of the proposal, but on Wednesday the official clarified those remarks, saying unannounced visits were on the table.