...As IAEA Pressure Mounts.

A team of International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) is due in Iran in July 2003 to discuss technical matters with the Iranian government, although IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei believes that the agency has yet to convince the country of the merits of accepting tighter inspections. Certainly, there remains a conviction among some officials that the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty that the nation is under pressure to sign will allow the kind of rigorous inspections that Iraq experienced in the run-up to the conflict. Moreover, the government would prefer to see the lifting of the international embargo on exporting nuclear technology to Iran as a quid pro quo for signing the Protocol.