"The official documents released by the IAEA have stressed Iran's non-diversion from peaceful nuclear activities and, meantime, we have always announced that we are ready for (more) cooperation to further clarify the path," Afkham said in her first weekly press conference in Tehran on Tuesday as the foreign ministry spokeswoman.
She said that no change has been made in Iran's "transparent and definite" positions in cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, and hoped that "this trend will continue well in the next round of talks with the Agency due to be held on September 27".
Her remarks came after the head of the UN atomic agency, Yukiya Amano, said his agency is eager to have constructive cooperation with Iran's new government.
The International Atomic Energy Agency "remains committed to working constructively with Iran, under the country's new government, to resolve outstanding issues by diplomatic means," Amano told a meeting of the IAEA's board of governors.
Meantime, he asked Iran to ease the West's alleged concerns about the dimensions of its nuclear program.
He reiterated the IAEA's long-standing statement that since Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation it "cannot conclude" that all its nuclear work is peaceful, according to the text of his remarks.
Iran says its nuclear program is a peaceful drive to produce electricity so that the world's fourth-largest crude exporter can sell more of its oil and gas abroad. Tehran also stresses that the country is pursuing a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.
The US and its western allies allege that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program while they have never presented corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations against the Islamic Republic.
Iran is under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment, saying the demand is politically tainted and illogical.
Numerous diplomatic initiatives over the past decade to find a peaceful solution have failed.
Iran has so far ruled out halting or limiting its nuclear work in exchange for trade and other incentives, saying that renouncing its rights under the NPT would encourage the world powers to put further pressure on the country and would not lead to a change in the West's hardline stance on Tehran.
Iran has also insisted that it would continue enriching uranium because it needs to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it is building in the Southwestern town of Darkhoveyn as well as its first nuclear power plant in the Southern port city of Bushehr.
Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of IAEA's questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.
Analysts believe that the US is at loggerheads with Iran due mainly to the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.
The United States and Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared country with nuclear weapons, have refused to rule out military means to stop Tehran's nuclear drive. The two arch foes of the Islamic Republic have failed to convince the UN Security Council to adopt harsher measures against Iran in the last year.
The US attempt to push for stronger Security Council sanctions has been undermined by the country's own national intelligence estimate, published in late 2007, which said Iran is not pursuing a weapons program.
Washington's push for additional UN penalties also contradicts reports by the IAEA's former Director-General, Mohammed ElBaradei - including a report in November 2007 and the other one in February 2008 - which praised Iran's truthfulness about key aspects of its past nuclear activities and announced settlement of outstanding issues with Tehran.
The February 2008 report by the UN nuclear watchdog praised Iran's cooperation in clearing up all the past questions over its nuclear program, vindicating the civilian nature of Iran's nuclear program and leaving no justification for any new UN sanctions.
Also in several reports to the IAEA's 35-member Board of Governors, ElBaradei repeatedly verified Iran's non-diversion of declared nuclear material, adding that the UN agency has failed to discover any "components of a nuclear weapon" or "related nuclear physics studies" in Iran.
The UN nuclear watchdog has carried out frequent surprise inspections of Iran's nuclear sites so far, but found nothing to support West's allegations.
The Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog continues snap inspections of Iranian nuclear sites and has reported that all "declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities."
The aforementioned reports have made any effort to impose further sanctions on Iran completely irrational.
Observers believe that the US attempt to rally international pressure against Iran lost steam due to the growing international vigilance following the said reports.
Many world nations have called the UN Security Council pressure against Iran unjustified, especially in the wake of the aforesaid IAEA reports, stressing that Tehran's case should be normalized and returned to the UN nuclear watchdog due to the Islamic Republic's increased cooperation with the agency.
And now a new round of talks between Iran and the IAEA is set for September 27, and a meeting with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the G5+1 or E3+3), the first since April, is also expected soon.
Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Friday after a phone call with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, G5+1 lead negotiator, that Tehran wanted to "remove any ambiguity" about its nuclear work.
The two will meet during the UN General Assembly later this month.
President Hassan Rouhani has also appointed a new Iranian envoy to the IAEA, Reza Najafi, and former foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi as head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.
