IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said after visiting Iran in May that Tehran would soon sign a deal to allow greater access to sites, documents and people involved in its nuclear programme -- but no such agreement has yet emerged.

"We call on Iran to conclude the agreement without further delay," the EU said in a statement to the meeting of the IAEA board of governors being held in Vienna this week.

"The EU has once again to stress the importance of granting early access to all sites, persons and information as and when requested by the agency," the statement said, making particular reference to a military base at Parchin.

The IAEA, which is holding a new round of talks with Iran in Vienna on Friday, has been seeking access to the Parchin base near Tehran, where it believes suspicious explosives testing has been carried out.

Iran has denied the IAEA demands, insisting the site is of no significance to its nuclear programme.

The EU also said that despite the increased dialogue between Iran and the nuclear watchdog, it remained deeply concerned that there had been "no substantive delivery" on the requirements of an IAEA resolution in November calling for greater cooperation by Tehran.

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said he hoped the parties to the talks would find a "common denominator".

"We'll try to continue to work on the text of a structural approach. Hopefully we will be able to conclude it," he told journalists on the sidelines of the closed-door meeting.

"I'm always optimistic," he said.

But he went on to criticise the IAEA, which he said is "subordinate" to Western nations.

"Unfortunately the agency, which is supposed to be an international technical organisation, is somehow playing the role of an intelligence agency," he said.

He said that "rather than welcoming the recent visit of" Amano, Western nations "questioned it... and this is not constructive at the eve of a meeting in Moscow or while we are determined to work intensively with the IAEA to find a solution on how to deal with the unresolved issues."

On Tuesday, US envoy to the IAEA Robert Woods said he was "not optimistic" of an accord on Iran's nuclear activities, which the West and Israel suspect is aimed at building a nuclear bomb -- a charge denied by Tehran.

"Additional sanctions are completely counterproductive, they are already adopted not only by the security council, but by some states, which we think undermines our collective actions," Lavrov told reporters.

Lavrov was speaking after Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao on a visit to Beijing, during which he will also meet Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The meeting will come as Russia prepares to host the latest round of talks on June 18 and 19 between world powers and Iranian negotiators in a bid to find a diplomatic solution to the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme.

The Moscow talks will follow a meeting last month in Baghdad where the six world powers -- the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany -- confronted Tehran over its intention to enrich uranium.

The West believes Iran is trying to develop an atomic bomb under cover of its civilian programme although Tehran insists the programme is solely peaceful.

Russia and China have both resisted Western sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear programme, with China one of the biggest buyers of Iranian oil.

The meeting with Ahmadinejad will be Putin's first since his return to the Kremlin for a third term after a four-year stint as prime minister.

Netanyahu complains of 'inadequate' world pressure on Iran
Berlin (AFP) June 6, 2012 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said international pressure on Iran aimed at curbing its nuclear ambitions is "inadequate", in comments published in a German newspaper Wednesday.

Netanyahu told the Bild daily that although sanctions affected Iran and its economy, they did not halt its nuclear programme.

"That is because the demands that accompany the sanctions are inadequate. You apply this whole set of pressures -- for what? For practically nothing!" he said in the second part of a wide-ranging interview with the mass circulation newspaper.

"Iran could stop the 20-percent enrichment at any moment now and not in any way retard their advance in the nuclear programme.

"The P5 + 1 (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France plus Germany) is so keen on getting any agreement that they have lowered the demands," he added.

He said Iran should be given three clear demands.

"One, stop all enrichment, high and low. Second, remove all material that has been enriched from Iran. Third, dismantle the underground nuclear bunker in Qom," he said.

World powers have held two rounds of talks with Iran aimed at convincing the Islamic republic to roll back its nuclear programme, which Israel and much of the West believes is a front for developing atomic weapons.

So far, the negotiations have not produced any tangible results although a third round is due to take place in Moscow later this month.

Israel, which sees a nuclear Iran as an existential threat, has refused to rule out a pre-emptive military strike on its nuclear facilities.

Tehran denies its intentions are anything but peaceful.