VIENNA (Reuters) - U.N. nuclear inspectors are ready to go to Iran's disputed Parchin military complex if the Islamic state were to allow it during talks in Tehran later this week, a senior official said on Wednesday.

The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believes Iran has carried out explosives tests with nuclear applications at Parchin, a sprawling facility southeast of Tehran, and has repeatedly asked for access to it.

Iran rejects accusations of a covert bid to develop the means and technologies needed to build nuclear arms and says Parchin is a conventional military site.

"We ... hope that Iran will allow us to go to the site of Parchin," IAEA deputy director general Herman Nackaerts told journalists at Vienna airport before departing for Tehran.

"If Iran would grant us access we would welcome that chance and we are ready to go," Nackaerts, head of a seven-member IAEA delegation travelling to Tehran for the talks on Thursday, said.

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Alison Williams)