IAEA chief to visit Iran on Wednesday

DUBAI (Reuters) - U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi will visit Iran next Wednesday and start consultations with Iranian officials the following day, state media reported on Sunday.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Wednesday he might head to Iran in the coming days to discuss its disputed nuclear programme and that he expected to work cooperatively with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

Long-standing issues between Iran, the IAEA, and Western powers include Tehran barring uranium-enrichment experts from IAEA inspection teams in the country and its failure for years to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.

Iran has also stepped up nuclear activity since 2019, after then-President Trump abandoned a 2015 deal Iran reached with world powers under which it curbed enrichment - seen by the West as a disguised effort to develop nuclear weapons capability - and restored tough U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Tehran is now enriching uranium to up to 60% fissile purity, close to the roughly 90% required for an atom bomb. It has enough higher-enriched uranium to produce about four nuclear bombs, if refined further, according to an IAEA yardstick.

Iran has long denied any nuclear bomb ambitions, saying it is enriching uranium for civilian energy uses only.

(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom, Editing by Louise Heavens and Sharon Singleton)

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