The IAEA chief says Turkey’s decision to build nuclear power plants is logical, notes the agency will start working together with Turkish authorities on the issue.

Turkey has a crucial role to play in encouraging negotiations to resolve a growing international dispute over Iran's contentious nuclear program, said Mohamedd ElBaradei, head of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

ElBaradei had talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Energy Minister Hilmi Güler in Turkey yesterday, on the first day of a three-day visit. Growing international tension over Iran's nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at producing nuclear weapons but Tehran insists is for peaceful purposes.

He said he was optimistic that a peaceful solution would be found for the dispute through diplomacy and negotiations as all sides had understood that it was necessary to work together. Iran is an important regional power and the rest of the world wants to work with Iran, he said.

ElBaradei also insisted that military measures could not be an option and that only diplomacy could bring a solution.

Turkey, a neighbor of Iran, has stepped up diplomacy to promote a peaceful solution to the international standoff over Tehran's nuclear program. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül has had talks with Iranian, Russian and German officials over the issue over the past weeks and discussed the matter with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday during a visit to Washington.

He will be visiting Tehran this weekend to attend a meeting of officials from countries neighboring Iraq.

ElBaradei said Turkey could play a key role. 

“I believe Turkey can play a very important role,” he said in an interview with NTV television before his departure for Turkey. “Turkey is in an unmatched position; you are a neighbor of Iran and a Muslim country and you also have close ties with the Middle East and Iran as well as with the West and the United States.”

He added, “You can understand where these countries stand and play an important role to bring them to the negotiating table.”

The U.N. Security Council is awaiting Iran's response to an offer by the five permanent members of the council plus Germany pledging economic and political incentives in exchange for a suspension of uranium enrichment. 

Western diplomats have threatened to punish Iran through possible U.N. Security Council sanctions unless Tehran stops enrichment activities and agrees to talks by July 12, when foreign ministers of the five permanent Security Council nations and Germany meet in Paris.

ElBaradei said he did not believe Iran was yet in a position to build a nuclear weapon and there was time for talk and diplomacy. In a separate interview with CNN Türk, he added no one questioned Iran's right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

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