Iran has named a disarmament expert as its envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog, extending a reshuffle of top officials dealing with its disputed atomic programme since new President Hassan Rouhani took office vowing to improve Iran's foreign relations. Rouhani has yet to pick someone for arguably Iran's most important diplomatic post - chief nuclear negotiator with world powers - but the pragmatist tilt of his team so far points to a closer alignment of nuclear and foreign policy. Reza Najafi, who has worked on disarmament issues within Iran's foreign ministry, will be its next ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, ISNA news agency said on Tuesday. Najafi replaces Ali Asghar Soltanieh, who has been leading so far fruitless negotiations with the IAEA since early 2012 and was the ambassador during the hardline conservative tenure of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The UN agency wants to resume a long-stalled investigation into suspicions that Iran has carried out research relevant for nuclear weapons development, an allegation Tehran denies. Western diplomats accuse Iran of stonewalling the IAEA inquiry. Rouhani, a relative moderate, has pledged to smooth Iran's relations with world powers to help ease stringent international sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear programme. Iran says it is enriching uranium only for civilian energy and medicine. The West suspects the programme is covertly oriented towards developing a nuclear weapons capability. Earlier this month Rouhani appointed former foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, seen as a relative pragmatist, to head Iran's atomic energy organisation, a position he held before, replacing a conservative hardliner. Vienna diplomats say the exit of Soltanieh, a strident conservative whose relations with the IAEA became tense, may be a further sign of Rouhani's desire for a fresh start with the outside world on nuclear issues. Rouhani has vowed Iran will be more transparent and less confrontational in talks both with the IAEA and the big powers.
