Iran’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that his country was willing to restart negotiations with the European Union immediately over its nuclear-enrichment programme.
“Iran is ready to respond positively in resuming negotiations on Iran’s nuclear-enrichment programme without any preconditions,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said following Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) talks here.
“I would like to announce our readiness to restart immediately negotiations with the EU Three [Britain, France and Germany],” he said.
Britain, France and Germany have been putting together a package of trade and other incentives aimed at coaxing Iran into agreeing to halt uranium enrichment — work that can be extended to making nuclear weapons.
Mottaki, however, ruled out the prospect of negotiations with the United States, which suspects Iran is working secretly toward building its own nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian drive for atomic power.
“Because of the bad temperament of the Americans, for the time being we have suspended these direct talks — which means that after changing of their behaviour, we may consider again,” he said.
Mottaki said earlier that the US would not be able to launch military strikes on Iran over its nuclear programme — which Iran insists is for peaceful purposes — because Washington was overstretched on too many fronts.
“They can’t. The US is not in a position to impose another crisis on taxpayers. There are a lot of difficulties in Iraq and Palestine. They are not in a position to create a new crisis in the region,” he said.
“The US position is that they would not like other countries to have nuclear technology. This is a double-standard policy. This is not acceptable.”
Iran insists it only wants to make civilian reactor fuel and that enrichment is a right enshrined by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
However, officials in Tehran indicated it may be willing to hold off on industrial-level enrichment, using huge numbers of centrifuges, and limit itself to research-scale work.
Mottaki also suggested that the issue was up for negotiation.
He said that Iran needed industrial-level enrichment to fulfil its power-generation targets.
However, he added that “for the time being we are in a research and development process and we are ready to negotiate with other parties on how to take the next step into coordination and the framework of our rights, as well as our obligations”.
Critics of Iran argue that even a small-scale enrichment facility is too much, given the concern that the Islamic regime could eventually acquire weapons know-how.
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany are set to hold fresh discussions on the package — and the penalties if Iran rejects it — on Thursday in Vienna, China’s foreign ministry confirmed.
In a communiqué, the 114-nation NAM backed Iran in its nuclear stand-off, emphasising the right of all nations “without any discrimination” to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. — AFP