TEHRAN, 15 March 2005 — A senior Iranian nuclear negotiator said yesterday that the European Union must accept Iran’s uranium enrichment program, Iranian student news agency ISNA reported.
“The Europeans have continuously demanded a halt to enrichment but this demand was not included in the agreement. The Europeans must accept Iran’s uranium enrichment,” said Sirus Naseri, referring to an initial deal reached with the EU last year.
Britain, France and Germany have been trying to secure “objective guarantees” that Iran will not use its atomic energy ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons, and in exchange they are offering a package of trade, security, diplomatic and technology benefits to Tehran.
“The negotiations have progressed well in the political and economic committees, but in the nuclear committee there has been less progress,” said Naseri, who led the Iranian team in talks last week in Geneva with EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany.
He stressed that the negotiating period was not “indefinite” and if no “reasonable agreement” were reached, Iran would be prepared to break off the talks and “accept the consequences”.
Naseri said Tehran might soon present the EU with a take-it-or-leave-it proposal to finalize the talks. He told state television that Tehran did not want a confrontation. “But if they don’t respond to what we believe is a logical stance, then they can choose their own path and we are prepared to deal with its consequences,” he said.
“It’s not like we have no time limits. It might not be long before we put on the table our final proposal and give them a deadline to either accept or reject it,” Naseri added. “We are not far away from this stage.”
Tehran agreed in November to suspend its enrichment activities as a sign of goodwill, but the Europeans would like the suspension to become a permanent halt, a demand the Iranians have termed “absurd”.
Iran says it has the right to enrich uranium to produce atomic fuel for civilian power stations, but once mastered the fuel cycle can be diverted to military purposes.
Naseri also urged the United States “to be reasonable and to change its strategy on Iran”, warning that such a move would be “in the Americans’ best interest.”
Washington accuses Iran of using an atomic energy drive as a cover for weapons development, and has threatened to take the matter to the UN Security Council.
Iran and the Europeans held a fourth round of negotiations last week that ended in a deadlock. A top-level meeting between the two sides to evaluate the progress in the talks is to be held on March 23.
