TEHRAN, 28 July 2005 — Iran will resume some key work on its nuclear fuel cycle regardless of what European diplomats propose to defuse a dispute over Tehran’s atomic ambitions, Iran’s president said yesterday.
Mohammad Khatami said the nuclear fuel work would fall short of actually producing enriched uranium, which Washington fears Tehran will use in atomic bombs, but stressed that Iran would also ultimately resume its enrichment program.
“Whether Europeans mention our right to resume activities at the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan or not, we will definitely resume them regardless,” Khatami told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting.
The plant at the central city of Isfahan takes processed uranium ore, mined in Iran’s central desert, and turns it into uranium hexafluoride gas. This gas can be pumped into centrifuges that spin at supersonic speed to enrich the uranium.
Tehran says it will enrich uranium to a low level for use in power stations. Washington says Tehran will take it to weapons-grade for use in warheads.
In a bid to resolve the dispute, an EU troika of France, Germany and Britain will present proposals to Iran by early August. In the meantime, Iran has suspended its nuclear fuel program as a goodwill gesture.
“Our deadline for suspending nuclear work was the EU proposal, we will wait until the first days of August but will restart activities right afterwards,” Khatami said.
The EU trio has traditionally encouraged Tehran to end all work on nuclear fuel in return for economic incentives. Iranian officials say they can never surrender the right to domestic production of nuclear fuel.
Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said Iran would hold off restarting enrichment.
“Enrichment is not currently on the agenda. What we are talking about is Isfahan and not Natanz,” he told reporters.
However, Khatami reiterated that Iran could not wait forever to restart Natanz. “We will certainly start uranium enrichment one day as well,” he said.
US President George W. Bush has refused to rule out military strikes if necessary to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon.
“America threatens a lot but, with all their worries in Iraq and the world, I think they would never do anything so senseless,” Khatami said.
“If America were to commit such an error, of course we would have losses but theirs would be bigger,” he said, insisting that despite his comments he had no desire to raise tension with Washington.
“My government and I have made all the political, military and economic preparations for any such attack.”
