TEHRAN, Aug 3: Iran said it hoped to resume work at a uranium conversion plant by early next week, backtracking from an earlier plan to restart on Wednesday, but still rejecting Western appeals to keep the project frozen. The European Union has warned Iran any resumption of nuclear fuel activities would mean an end to two years of talks on Iran’s atomic ambitions. Tehran says it wants only to generate electricity, but the West suspects it aims to make nuclear bombs.

If Iran resumes work and the EU declares the talks over, the EU would then back US calls to start a process that could end with Tehran being referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. Chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani said he had sent a letter to the EU complaining that the bloc was making ‘unacceptable threats’.

“We hope to restart work by the beginning of next week when preparations are complete,” he told state television, speaking on the day that Iran’s new, conservative President Mahmood Ahmadinejad took office.

An EU official said in Brussels the new timeframe was a step in the right direction.

“This is an indication that ties have not been severed and that Iran is interested in learning more about the proposals which the EU3 have to make,” he said.

Mr Rohani said he would probably not remain Iran’s top negotiator under President Ahmadinejad, but that his successor would not change Iran’s nuclear policies. Iranian officials have repeatedly said the decision to resume nuclear fuel work was irreversible, but would be carried out under the supervision of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors.

The IAEA said it would take at least a week to send surveillance equipment from its headquarters in Vienna and install it in the central city of Isfahan, where Iran hopes to convert uranium ore into feed gas for centrifuges.

Centrifuges then enrich uranium by spinning it at supersonic speed.

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS: The EU3 of Britain, France and Germany planned to offer Iran nuclear, political and economic incentives to freeze its nuclear fuel activities indefinitely, and have said a resumption would torpedo two years of hard bargaining and spark an international crisis.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Ahmadinejad faced “a strategic choice, to continue down a road that leads to isolation, or to decide on and reap the benefit of international cooperation,” according to the pre-publication summary of an article for Germany’s Capital magazine.

Iran insists the EU recognize its right to enrich uranium, something the bloc has refused to do. Iranian officials accuse the EU of breaking a 2004 deal under which Iran suspended nuclear fuel work, saying the bloc has dragged its heels in the talks started under that agreement.

Iran, like all signatories of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is obliged to open civilian nuclear sites to inspection. Tehran has agreed to allow cameras at its facilities.—Reuters