Iran's nuclear chief has called on the European Union to help calm the debate about Iran's nuclear programme and stop it from being politicised, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported today.
Mr Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, made the comments on Saturday when he met EU foreign policy chief Mr Javier Solana, who told Iran it should sign up to tougher nuclear inspections to keep good EU relations.
The United States has accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons and US officials have said Washington wants the issue brought before the UN Security Council. Iran denies the charge and says its nuclear programme is purely civilian.
"We asked the EU representative to prevent the politicising of Iran's nuclear activities so that the (International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA) could continue its work in a calm atmosphere without propaganda," Mr Aghazadeh was quoted as saying.
The IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, said in a report obtained by Reuters news agency that Iran had improved cooperation but there were still questions about weapons-grade enriched uranium found at a site in Iran.
IAEA governors will discuss the report in early September. Iran says contaminated imported equipment was to blame for the enriched particles.