THE INTERNATIONAL Atomic Energy Agency says it is “disappointing” that no progress has been made in discussions with Iranian officials over the development of Iran’s nuclear programme.

An agreement was reached with Iran last month under which the IAEA was able to restart a repeatedly stalled inquiry into the international community’s suspicions that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

Iran has repeatedly denied the accusations; it says it it’s nuclear programme is focused on energy production.

Senior IAEA officials met an Iranian delegation in Vienna, Austria today in the latest effort to reach agreement on a structured approach paper for resolving outstanding issues concerning the nuclear programme.

After that meeting, IAEA deputy director general Herman Nackaerts said that the IAEA team “came to the meeting in a constructive spirit with the desire and intention of finalising the paper”.

He said that the organisation has presented a revised draft of the paper which addressed Iran’s earlier concerns about the strategy. “However, there has been no progress,” he said, “and indeed Iran raised issues that we have already discussed and added new ones. This is disappointing.”

A follow-up meeting is expected to be arranged, but no date has been determined for that meeting.