UNITED NATIONS, May 3: Iran declared on Tuesday that it is determined to pursue all legal areas of nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment asserting that it is the “inalienable right of states to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes”. Addressing a UN conference on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said his government is “eager” to provide guarantees that its nuclear-fuel programme will serve only peaceful purposes, as sought in talks with European governments.

US contends Iran’s uranium enrichment programme is aimed at building nuclear weapons and President Bush has proposed banning such technology to all but those countries that already have it. Enriched uranium also can be used to generate electricity, which Iran says is its only aim.

“It is unacceptable that some intend to limit the access to nuclear technology to an exclusive club of technologically advanced states under the pretext of non-proliferation,” Mr Kharrazi said in an apparent reference to the position taken by the United States.

He said that “this attitude is in clear violation of the letter and spirit of Treaty and destroys the fundamental balance which exists between rights and obligations of the treaty”. He also told delegates from more than 180 nations that the United States and other nuclear-weapons states should make legally binding assurances to non-nuclear states like Iran that they will not be subject to nuclear attack.

In Tehran, meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Tuesday that the government would resume some nuclear activities — but not uranium enrichment — that have been suspended during talks with European governments to resolve the dispute.

On Monday, the opening day of a month-long conference reviewing the workings of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, US delegation chief Stephen G. Rademaker demanded that Iran shut down and dismantle its enrichment equipment.