Iran said progress was made in today's talks in Tehran with senior UN nuclear inspectors but gave no details other than they would meet again in mid-January.

There was no immediate comment from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about the one-day meeting over Iran's disputed nuclear programme, and no sign its inspectors would gain access to the Parchin military complex as requested.

The agency believes Iran has conducted explosives tests with possible nuclear applications at Parchin, a sprawling facility southeast of Tehran, and has repeatedly asked for access.

The talks were the first between the UN agency and Iran since August and the outcome could give some indication whether Iran - which denies it wants to develop atom bombs - is any more willing to address international concerns over its nuclear work after US President Barack Obama's re-election last month.

Israel - believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal - has threatened military action if diplomacy and economic sanctions intended to halt Iran's uranium enrichment activities fail to resolve the long-standing dispute.

After previous rounds of discussions this year - which did not yield any breakthrough on a long-stalled IAEA investigation into suspected atom bomb research - the two sides often gave different versions of events.

One Western diplomat in Vienna, commenting on the Iranian media reports, said on Thursday one of the IAEA's main goals in this week's talks had been to visit Parchin and this did not appear to have been achieved.

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh said progress had been made, official media reported, without giving any examples of concrete steps forward.

"Intensive negotiations were held ... There was good progress made. The two sides agreed to hold the next round of talks on Jan. 16 in Tehran," IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

The UN team was expected to return to Vienna on Friday.