"Overall I think we are moving in the right direction," the IAEA director general told a French parliamentary hearing during a visit to Paris.

"But Iran also has to understand that the world is not going to wait forever for them to come clean," ElBaradei said. "There is also the credibility of the verification, and people are getting a bit impatient."

Iran reiterated Wednesday that it would stick to its commitments to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over its nuclear program, to ensure that it was not harboring a covert weapons program.

With IAEA inspectors due to report on Tehran's activities by the end of May, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi, speaking in Berlin on Wednesday, pledged: "We will fulfill our commitments on the nuclear program."

ElBaradei said cooperation had improved since October, when Iran gave the IAEA what it said was a complete declaration of its nuclear activities, but the dossier was later found to have significant omissions.

He also recalled Tehran's suspension of inspections in March "after a resolution by our board of governors which they did not like."

The IAEA resolution condemned Iran for failing to report crucial technologies such as designs for sophisticated centrifuges that can produce weapons-grade uranium.

"Iran's political situation is very complex," ElBaradei noted. "There are the hardliners, the moderates, those who would like to see cooperation with the West and those who are not necessarily keen on that."

Tehran vigorously denies US and Israeli charges that it is seeking nuclear weapons, and is pressing for its dossier to be taken off the top of the IAEA's agenda during the June meeting -- something that most diplomats say is highly unlikely.

ElBaradei was to meet later Thursday with French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier.

Barnier's predecessor Dominique de Villepin was one of a trio of EU foreign ministers who last year negotiated an agreement with Tehran under which Iran would allow a tougher IAEA probe to ensure it was not developing weapons.

In return, they dangled a carrot of peaceful nuclear assistance.

WAR.WIRE