The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammed El-Baradei said that inspectors will visit the new nuclear plant in Qom, Iran, on 25 October. ElBaradei visited Tehran this weekend to meet with officials and discuss the country staggering access of IAEA experts to build facilities in Qom, where he plans to enrich uranium. At a press conference, the Nobel Prize highlighted the importance of this general inspection to verify the peaceful nature of the activities taking place at the plant, located about 150 miles southwest of Tehran. He also reported that U.S. negotiators, Russia and France will meet on October 19 with their Iranian counterparts in Vienna to discuss the possibility that Iran enrich uranium abroad. The head of the IAEA praised the Iranian government to advance the commitments made during talks last week in Geneva with the permanent members of Security Council of the UN and Germany. El-Baradai said that the current is a critical moment where everything seems to indicate that we are moving from confrontation to transparency and urged Iran to maintain and improve their relationship with the IAEA. The existence of the new plant in Qom became public last Sept. 25 and prompted a series of criticism from Western powers, who accused the Iranian government to hide information. Iran, meanwhile, said the IAEA had been part of this construction in a letter on 21 November.
