"The pace of cooperation has quickened since the recent Tehran talks (with an IAEA delegation earlier this month) and we are counting on it accelerating still further in the coming weeks now that we have drawn up a work plan," Ali Akbar Salehi told the government daily Iran.

Salehi rejected criticism by IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei of Iran's progress in satisfying the watchdog's concerns about its nuclear programme by an October 31 deadline, urging appreciation of its efforts.

"If the way we are working together is acceptable to both Iran and the agency, then logically one cannot declare that that cooperation has failed just because all concerns have not been addressed by the deadline," the envoy said.

He warned the IAEA not to be unreasonable in its demands lest it box Iran into a corner.

"We have not gone to sleep," he said. "We do have plans for the worst-case scenario even if it's not our preferred outcome."

The IAEA last month threatened to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if it failed to answer suspicions it was concealing covert weapons development behind its civil energy programme.

Inspectors' concerns focus in particular on traces of highly enriched uranium found on two samples they took from suspect sites.

Salehi said Iran was providing IAEA personnel with all the access they needed to prove its contention that the weapons-grade material was brought in inadvertently on imported equipment and not secretly manufactured domestically.

The inspectors would be given access to "all sites where the equipment was stored so that samples can taken. What matters is giving a complete picture and not just contradictory fragments."

Salehi said the IAEA's five-member team, which has been carrying out inspections here over the past week, was due to leave on Monday (October 13), but would be replaced by a new one in about a week.

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