UN nuclear inspectors start on Monday a two-day visit to Iran in order to press the Islamic Republic on Its atomic program.

UN nuclear inspectors start on Monday a two-day visit to Iran in order to press the Islamic Republic on Its atomic program.

The trip is the second in less than a month by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team, reflecting mounting pressure on Iran.

nuclear inspector Nackaerts

Iran's state radio said Monday the inspectors hope to meet Iranian nuclear scientists and visit the Parchin military complex. The report said the IAEA had requested to visit Parchin, an Iranian military base and weapons development facility outside of Tehran.

The IAEA is hoping for "concrete results" from the talks focused on "the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program," the delegation's leader, chief UN nuclear inspector Herman Nackaerts, said on departing from Vienna late Sunday.

But he cautioned progress "may take a while." The last such visit, three weeks ago, yielded no breakthrough.

The IAEA visit comes as Iran last week announced key advancements in its nuclear program, inserting the first domestically made fuel rod into a research reactor in Tehran and installing a new generation of Iranian-made centrifuges at the country's main uranium enrichment facility in the central town of Natanz.

On Sunday, the Islamic Republic halted crude exports to France, Britain, in a defiant stance against Western sanctions and Israeli threats of military action against it.

Following the Iranian action, Brent crude hit an eight-month high in Asian trade on Monday.

Iran confirms its program is for peaceful ends only insisting that is its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) while Israel, which is believed to be the sole nuclear power in the Middle East with more than 200 nuclear heads, is not a signatory for this treaty.