Iran has asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for technical aid in constructing a nuclear research reactor despite calls to freeze its nuclear programme, diplomats told AFP on Monday.
"Iran has asked the IAEA to provide it with technical assistance and for financial help towards the heavy-water reactor at Arak," about 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Tehran, a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
The request will first be considered next week by the UN agency's technical assistance committee before a meeting of the IAEA's governing board in Vienna on November 23-24, another diplomatic source said.
The IAEA and the UN Security Council have called without success on Iran to abandon plans to build the Arak research reactor, which is of a type that could be adapted to produce plutonium for atomic warheads.
"There is a broad agreement among many countries on the board that we should not support a project that the board itself has repeatedly asked Iran to hold," said the first diplomat.
However, according to the second expert, the IAEA could be in a position to offer some assistance to help ensure the project goes ahead safely.
"IAEA wants in no way to encourage the building of this facility and will support neither its design, nor its building," the source said.
"But they (the Iranians) will build it anyway and the IAEA could accept to review the safety components so as at least to limit the risks."
An Iranian source was quoted in Monday's Etemad-Melli daily in Tehran saying that it was "the IAEA's duty to provide safety assistance" in this regard.
Tehran announced plans to build the Arak plant in May 2003 and experts say when it is fully operational -- expected in 2009 -- it could produce up to 12.5 kilogram's of plutonium a year, enough for two or three nuclear bombs.
Six major powers were to resume attempts later Monday to agree on how to censure Iran for refusing to suspend sensitive nuclear fuel work.
Ambassadors from Germany and the UN Security Council's five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- were to hold another round of informal talks on a European draft resolution mandating nuclear and ballistic missile-related sanctions against the Islamic republic.
Iran, which said Sunday it plans to install 3,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment by March 2007, has warned that the adoption of such a resolution will mean the end of any negotiations.