"We are there (in Iran) with full force. We are doing lots of environmental samples, we are interviewing people, we are looking at satellite imagery, we are visiting sites," said International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Mohamed ElBaradei.

"They need to be fully transparent and I think so far what we have seen in terms of cooperation is satisfactory," ElBaradei told BBC television.

The IAEA's Vienna headquarters said earlier Friday it expects next week to receive a letter from Iran agreeing to allow wider and unannounced international inspections of its nuclear programme.

In another development that seemed to show Iran edging towards compliance in revealing its programme, ElBaradei said Thursday that a report Iran filed October 23 to answer the agency's questions was "comprehensive".

But he cautioned that the jury was still out on its accuracy.

ElBaradei also told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Friday that IAEA inspectors were able to go where they wanted in Iran and were verifying the report.

WAR.WIRE