TEHRAN, Oct 31: Iran's parliament passed a bill on Sunday backing the resumption of uranium enrichment, as the government left the door open for further negotiations with Europe over the controversial practice.
The vote by the parliament was largely symbolic, but the foreign ministry offered hope for negotiations this week in Paris with European countries, calling for concrete commitments if the Islamic Republic were to abandon uranium enrichment.
"We are expecting from them (Europe) a calendar of cooperation and we will insist on that point," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
"We expect that in the course of this (Paris) meeting the Europeans will specify their precise commitments, concrete and clear, and the Islamic Republic will take the best decision in line with its own interests," he added.
Meanwhile, in the conservative-dominated parliament the 247 lawmakers present out of a total of 290 "all approved the text", backing enrichment, parliament president Gholam Ali Hadad Adel said. The motion was passed to calls of "Death to America".
He described the vote as a "message addressed to foreign countries that parliament will not give in to intimidation". The text tells the government "to take action for the country to master civilian nuclear technology, especially in the fuel production cycle".
"If this text is adopted, Iran will have to set a date for an end to the suspension of enrichment," Allaeddin Borujerdi, head of the parliament's national security and foreign affairs committee, had said before the debate.-AFP
