Iran rejects IAEA demand

2004-10-06 19:16

Tehran - Iranian officials said on Wednesday they will not cede to international demands for the Islamic republic to suspend its controversial uranium enrichment activities, saying they were ready for confrontation or negotiation.

"We have said clearly that we will not apply the second part of the resolution concerning the total suspension of enrichment," Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani told state television.

He was referring to a resolution passed on September 18 by the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) calling on Iran to "immediately" widen a suspension of enrichment to include all uranium enrichment-related activities, such as making centrifuges, converting yellowcake into UF6 feed gas, and constructing a heavy water reactor.

"We have suspended enrichment voluntarily and we will not accept any constraints," Rowhani added.

"To sort out this case, there are two possibilities: Either we find a political solution and close the case (at the IAEA) or we move towards confrontation. We are ready for both."

Iran, facing a November 25 deadline, risks being referred to the UN Security Council if it fails to comply.

But another official said Iran was continuing to convert uranium.

"Out of the 37 tonnes of yellowcake, a few tonnes has been used and converted. This is an experimental and testing process," Hossein Mousavian told AFP.

Tonnes of uranium

He was referring to 37 tonnes of uranium yellowcake which Iran had previously said it would be converting into the gas, uranium hexoflouride (UF6), that is fed into centrifuges to make enriched uranium.

Mousavian, a deputy to Rowhani, nevertheless asserted that the conversion activities were under IAEA supervision.

"The process of testing has from the beginning been under 100% supervision and control of the IAEA, in the framework of safeguards agreements, the additional protocol and IAEA rules and regulations, and every milligram of this testing process is controlled by the IAEA," he said.

Depending on the level of purification, enriched uranium can be used either as fuel for a civilian reactor or as the explosive core of a nuclear bomb.

Iran insists it only wants to generate electricity.

"Why should we not resume enrichment?" declared Kazem Jalali, spokesman for the Iranian parliament's foreign policy and national security commission, after deputies in the hardline-controlled parliament on Tuesday began a legislative drive to force a resumption of enrichment.

"Where in the (nuclear) NPT and in the additional protocol does it say that enrichment is forbidden and therefore it should be stopped? It is our natural right," he continued.

But many analysts say the parliament's move is more a case of posturing and a means of raising the stakes in the standoff with the IAEA.

Perhaps tellingly, the bill was not prioritised for immediate debate in the assembly.

- AFP