A new U.S. readiness to engage Iran could help resolve suspicions about its nuclear work but Tehran must do more to “unblock this stalemated situation,” the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief said on Monday. Mohamed ElBaradei made the remarks in an address kicking off a week-long meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation board of governors in Vienna, the first since U.S. President Barack Obama took office on January 20. ElBaradei also said Syria was obstructing IAEA efforts to clarify U.S. intelligence indications that it almost built a covert nuclear reactor geared to yielding plutonium for atom bombs before it was destroyed in a 2007 Israeli air strike.
