TEHRAN, Sept 14: Iran refuses to accept an unlimited suspension of uranium enrichment and will not stop the manufacture of centrifuges, one of the country's top nuclear officials was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
"We will not accept any bargaining for an unlimited suspension," said Hossein Mousavian, a top member of the Iranian delegation to a key meeting in Vienna of the UN nuclear watchdog.
Limiting Iran's mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle is at the heart of the debate at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over US-led calls for Iran to be referred to the UN Security Council for enforcement action.
"Iran will not accept committing itself to a new suspension of the manufacture of parts" for centrifuges used for enrichment, Mousavian was quoted as saying by the Iranian student news agency, ISNA.
"Iran will not accept having to make new commitments that extend the scope of the suspension of uranium enrichment," he told ISNA from Vienna. Iran had last October suspended the enrichment of uranium as a confidence-building measure while under investigation by the IAEA on the US charges it was secretly developing nuclear weapons.
Uranium can be enriched through centrifuges into a highly refined form that can be used as fuel for civilian reactors or to make an atomic bomb. Nuclear fuel cycle work for peaceful purposes is permitted under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its additional protocol, but there are worries Iran could master this and then use it for military purposes.
Britain, France and Germany have been trying to get Iran to agree to surrender its enrichment programme in return for a guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel and increased trade.
Mousavian said this was out of the question. "If the final (IAEA) resolution demands the continuation of the enrichment suspension, Iran will reject it," he said, adding that the Europeans had already made such a demand and Iran had refused it.
Iran has only agreed to suspend enrichment pending the completion of the IAEA investigation, and Mousavian insisted Iran had done enough to build confidence. "We consider that Iran has done a lot to build confidence, notably by signing the additional protocol and implementing it," he said, referring to a supplementary treaty allowing tougher IAEA inspections. -AFP
