Negotiations with the European Union on Iran’s nuclear programme are entering a crucial phase but Tehran will continue to reject calls for it to abandon sensitive fuel-cycle work, Iranian officials said on Monday.
”This week’s negotiations with the Europeans are the most important part of the nuclear negotiations,” Iran’s Vice-President and atomic energy head Gholamreza Aghazadeh told state television.
”The conclusion of three months of nuclear negotiations is close, and the Europeans this week should more clearly tell us their plans,” he added. ”We are expecting the negotiations to be serious and meaningful.”
Iran agreed in November with Britain, France and Germany to suspend all uranium-enrichment-related activities in return for talks on trade, security and technological bonuses for the Islamic Republic.
The Iran-EU talks began in Brussels in December, moved to Geneva in January and are to resume on Tuesday in Geneva, diplomats said.
But there is a risk of deadlock, with EU negotiators demanding Iran totally dismantle its nuclear fuel programme, including enrichment, as ”objective guarantees” that it does not seek atomic weapons.
Sirus Naseri, a member of Iran’s nuclear negotiations strategy committee, said Iran will not bow to such a demand.
Enrichment is a key process that can make fuel for nuclear reactors as well as the explosive cores of atomic bombs.
Provided the purpose is peaceful, the fuel cycle is authorised by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — a right that Iran stands by but critics see as a dangerous loophole in the treaty.
”This proposal will not go anywhere,” Naseri said of wider calls — notably from Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — for a revision of the NPT that would deny widespread access to the fuel cycle.
He told state television that Iran has already ”reached the point of no return in the fuel technology issue”.
”The proposal will definitely fail … a monopoly in the field of energy is something unbelievable,” Naseri added.
And in separate comments, powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told USA Today newspaper that he is ”not satisfied with the progress” of the negotiations, ”but I am happy that the talks are going on”.
US has not ‘eliminated any alternative’
On Sunday, United States Vice-President Dick Cheney said the US backs the European diplomatic effort but has not ”eliminated any alternative”.
”I think there’s a good-faith effort under way by our European allies to try to resolve this issue diplomatically. We support that effort,” the vice-president said in an interview with Fox News.
”There are a number of steps here to be considered. We have not eliminated any alternative at this point, but we obviously are seriously pursuing diplomatic resolution of this problem,” Cheney said.
Cheney did not elaborate on the alternatives.
Washington has not ruled out using military force against Tehran although US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week that that ”the question is simply not on the agenda at this point”.
An Iranian nuclear weapon would be ”a destabilising factor and we cannot let that happen”, she said on Sunday.
The IAEA, which has been investigating Iran for two years, has found plenty of evidence pointing to suspicious activity but no ”smoking gun” that proves Iran is seeking the bomb.
Iran insists it only wants to be self-sufficient in nuclear energy, and free up its vast oil and gas reserves for export. — Sapa-AFP