UN atomic agency opens meeting on Iran, North Korea

VIENNA: The watchdog UN atomic agency opened a meeting on Monday that will document Iran's defiance of demands to rein in its nuclear programme and likely approve deep cuts in technical aid to Tehran.

The meeting of the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency comes as diplomacy accelerates to win guarantees Tehran does not seek the bomb.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei will also notify the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors in Vienna that he will be travelling to North Korea on March 13 to discuss how to monitor the communist state's promised dismantling of its nuclear facilities, a spokeswoman said.

ElBaradei will report at what could be a week-long meeting here on Iran's defiance of United Nations Security Council demands for it to suspend uranium enrichment, and to in any case allow full monitoring of its sensitive nuclear activities.

He is also expected to win approval for the IAEA's near-halving of technical aid to Iran, in line with sanctions the Security Council imposed on the Islamic Republic in a resolution December 23.

Western states are this week seeking even tougher sanctions at the Council, but at the same time Iran and the United States are expected to attend a regional conference that could lead to a breakthrough in contacts between the two adversaries.

The conference on Saturday in Baghdad to discuss stabilizing Iraq will include about a dozen other countries, but analysts say it would be significant if Iran and the United States end up sitting at the same table.