IAEA says Iran nuclear deal reached Yukiya Amano, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Tuesday that he had reached a deal with Iran on investigating Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons programme. The head of the UN body said a "decision was made to conclude and sign the agreement ... I can say it will be signed quite soon. Mr Amano said a few details still needed to be resolved but that these would not block progress. He was speaking in Vienna after returning from Tehran, where he held talks with Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. Iranian officials have not yet commented on the prospect of a deal between Tehran and the IAEA. State television, however, said it was not clear how Mr Amano could make the comments he did since the two sides reached "no conclusion over an imminent agreement" in their talks in Tehran on Monday. Ali Larijani, Iran's parliamentary speaker, sidestepped the issue, telling reporters that "Iran's policy is to reach a solution" over the nuclear stalemate and urged the major powers to abandon their "political games" in the Baghdad talks. But on Tuesday Israel voiced sharp criticism of the agreement with Iran. We are extremely sceptical about this apparent agreement between the IAEA and Iran. We saw what happened with this kind of agreement in the past. We saw that Iran routinely broke its commitments and violated signed agreements," an Israeli official said, requesting anonymity because of the tentative nature of the deal. Supervision itself is not enough. The central problem is that the Iranian nuclear programme continues and the international community must stop it," the official added. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, had earlier underlined his country's three core demands in relation to Iran. Speaking on Monday evening, he insisted that Tehran had to halt all enrichment activity, ship its stockpile of enriched uranium abroad and dismantle the nuclear facility near Qom. "The world's leading countries must show determination, not weakness," Mr Netanyahu said. They do not need to make concessions to Iran. They need to set clear and unequivocal demands before it. A deal with Iran should help the discussions that Mr Jalili will hold with six world powers in Baghdad on Wednesday, which are aimed at preventing the Iranian crisis descending into conflict. "We held expanded and intensive negotiations in a good atmosphere," Mr Amano was reported by Iranian state media as saying on Monday. Definitely, the progress of talks will have a positive impact on negotiations between Iran and the P5+1. That term refers to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, Britain, France, Russia and China - plus Germany. These six countries have joined diplomatic efforts with Iran to negotiate over its nuclear programme. Mr Amano and his Iranian interlocutors were not giving details of their deal. For some years, the IAEA has been asking Iran to answer questions relating to what the UN agency calls the "possible military dimensions" of its nuclear programme. The IAEA is asking Iran to allow it access to a military complex at Parchin, 18 miles southwest of Tehran, where it may have conducted high-explosive tests of components for an atomic weapon. A senior western diplomat preparing for the talks in Baghdad said it was important that Iran assisted the IAEA in its investigation into whether Tehran has sought to build a nuclear weapon. However, the diplomat said the critical question this week would be whether Iran and the six powers can move towards the first in a series of incremental deals that would see Tehran freeze and scale back its programme in return for concessions from the outside world. Asked whether Iran and the IAEA were close to reaching an agreement that would quickly resolve questions over Iran's nuclear programme, Mr Amano added: "I will not go into details but the agency has some viewpoints and Iran has its own specific viewpoints." The news agency said that this showed world powers had distanced themselves from their win-win policy in Istanbul talks and had no commitment to any meaningful engagement.