A team of UN nuclear experts arrived in Brazil today, hoping to break a deadlock over inspections to verify Brazil is not diverting enriched uranium to a weapons program.
The three experts had meetings with officials from the Brazilian National Nuclear Energy Commission in Rio de Janeiro today ahead of tomorrow's visit to the Resende uranium-enrichment plant in Rio state.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, diplomats in Vienna who follow the International Atomic Energy Agency said the team hoped to ensure adequate access to centrifuges at Resende - something Brazil has so far refused.
"There's no done deal," a diplomat said. "They hope to reach a deal while they're there."
An IAEA spokeswoman declined to comment about the visit, saying that the movement of inspectors and negotiations on nuclear safeguards were classified information.
Brazil, home to the world's fourth largest reserve of uranium, says its enrichment operations will be entirely peaceful.
Brazil has argued that allowing the inspectors to see the centrifuges could make the South American state vulnerable to industrial espionage.
The IAEA, however, needs a certain amount of direct access to the centrifuges so it can know how fast they spin to purify the uranium, along with other details to check that all the uranium going into the plant is accounted for and cannot be diverted unnoticed.
Washington has said it is confident that an agreement would be worked out between the UN agency and Brazil.
A prominent nuclear analyst has said the IAEA is also concerned that a Pakistani scientist who supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea with sensitive nuclear technology may also have worked with Brazil.
Brazil dismissed the allegation as having "no coherence" and the IAEA played down the comments. Brazil's science ministry spokesman said "the enrichment technology is 100 per cent Brazilian".