TEHRAN, 13 June 2004 — Iran yesterday rejected European demands that it freeze additional parts of its atomic program, saying it would push on with plans to build a heavy-water reactor.
“We will not accept any new obligation,” Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told a news conference. “If anyone asks us to give up Isfahan industries to change yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride gas or to give up heavy-water facilities in Arak, we cannot accept such an extra demand that is contradictory to our legal rights.”
Yellowcake is processed uranium ore, mined near the central desert city of Yazd. Uranium hexafluoride gas is pumped into centrifuges that enrich uranium by spinning it.
The United States says Iran is using its program as a smokescreen for building an atomic bomb, but Tehran insists its scientists are working only on ways to meet booming domestic electricity demand.
Britain, Germany and France penned a tough draft resolution this week deploring Iran’s failure to cooperate fully with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The document, to be debated at an IAEA board meeting starting Monday, asked Iran to freeze its operation of a uranium conversion facility near Isfahan and reverse its decision to construct a heavy-water reactor near the central industrial city of Arak. Kharrazi said he hoped IAEA board members would resist US pressure and not only soften the resolution but also drop Iran’s case.
Iran must explain how traces of bomb-grade uranium came to be found on components, and what it plans to do with advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges it initially failed to declare.
The heavy-water reactor Tehran has decided to build would be capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.
Kharrazi said the reactor was still being designed and he did not know when construction work would start.
Iran promised to suspend its uranium enrichment last year but the call by the three European powers to halt work at Isfahan and drop plans for the Arak reactor is new.
