VIENNA, Austria – The U.N. atomic watchdog agency approved a deal yesterday that keeps nuclear inspectors out of Saudi Arabia despite an international push to scrap such arrangements because they can be abused by proliferators.

International Atomic Energy Agency board members also focused on a report detailing discrepancies about Iran’s plutonium experiments and other suspect activities. America warned it would never let Iran develop nuclear arms.

Tehran maintains its nuclear program is for generating electricity.

The IAEA approved the deal with Saudi Arabia despite serious misgivings about such arrangements in this era of heightened proliferation fears.

IAEA officials say there is no reason to doubt the Saudis when they say they have no plans to develop nuclear arms and no facilities or nuclear stocks that warrant inspection.

The Saudis qualified for a “small quantities protocol” – an agreement that already applies to 75 other nations, including Vatican City and Trinidad and Tobago, and that puts the onus solely on the nation to report its status to the IAEA.

The protocol frees countries from reporting the possession of up to 10 tons of natural uranium – enough to make a bomb – or up to 20 tons of depleted uranium, depending on the degree of enrichment, and 2.2 pounds of plutonium.

The timing of the Saudi deal comes amid persistent tensions in the Middle East, concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and increased fears that countries or terrorists are looking to acquire nuclear arms. It also coincides with an IAEA push to tighten or rescind the protocol because of loopholes that encourage potential proliferators, as suggested in a confidential IAEA document prepared for the 35-nation board and made available to the AP.

Past Saudi nuclear ambiguities also are worrisome. In the past two decades, the kingdom has been linked to pre-war Iraq’s nuclear program and to the Pakistani nuclear black marketeer Abdul Qadeer Khan.

It also has expressed interest in Pakistani missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and Saudi officials reportedly discussed pursuing the nuclear option as a deterrent in the volatile Middle East. The Saudis have resisted pressure from America, the European Union, and Australia to either back away from the protocol or agree to inspections. A confidential E.U. briefing made available to the AP quoted the Saudi deputy foreign minister, Prince Turki bin Mohammed bin Saud al-Kabira, as telling E.U. officials his country would be “willing to provide additional information” to the IAEA “only if all other parties” to the protocol did the same.