Anxious Iran threatens to backtrack on nuclear deal
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-07-28 11:12

Iran, anxious to enshrine its right to continue nuclear fuel cycle in a long-expected European proposal, threatened once again on Wednesday to backtrack on its confidence-building measure of suspending sensitive nuclear activities.

Iran's outgoing President Mohammad Khatami warned after a weekly cabinet meeting on Monday that Iran was determined to resume the preliminary process of uranium enrichment whatever would emerge in the European proposal due to be unveiled in early August.

Khatami hoped that the European trio of France, Britain and Germany would permit Iran to resume the process to convert raw uranium ore into uranium hexafluoride gas in preparation for further enrichment.

The gas can be pumped into centrifuges that spin at supersonic speed to enrich the uranium.

However, the president stressed that the conversion was quite different from the enrichment itself, underlying that Tehran had not so far taken into account the resumption of the enrichment, namely, to turn the gas into enriched uranium through centrifuges.

Khatami's tough message was echoed by Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi, who said the uranium conversion facilities in Iran's central city of Isfahan would resume work if the European proposal failed to meet Iran's interests.

Khatami and Kharazi's warnings illustrated what the country's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani termed "new conditions" of the Iranian nuclear case two days ago.

"I hope the decision they (the Europeans) make will not waste the fruits of our mutual efforts. Iran will wait for their comprehensive cooperation proposal. If that proposal is arranged in a way to face Iran's rejection, we might be faced with new conditions," Rowhani said.

Iran has warned many times during the past few months of retreating to a certain extent on its nuclear deal with the European Union (EU), the longtime broker of the Iranian nuclear issue.

Tehran downright suspended all activities related to uranium enrichment in November 2004 to avoid a referral of its nuclear case to the UN Security Council, but it clutched at the baseline that the suspension was only a temporary confidence-building move and could be repealed on its will.

The EU has been trying but in vain so far to talk Iran out of its enrichment program, a key procedure on the way to building nuclear reactors.

The EU has urged Tehran to stop the enrichment as the key " objective guarantee" that its nuclear program is not aimed at building the atomic bomb in return for various trade and political incentives.

Tehran insists that it can provide the guarantees while keeping some enrichment activities.

Since the suspension in 2004, the two sides have been bargaining over the guarantees and the uncompromising stances of both parties have deadlocked the negotiations for months.

In talks in late May, the EU promised to present in two months a comprehensive proposal, which includes a package of economic and political incentives, to solve the Iranian nuclear issue.

Iran, on its part, voiced determination to continue the talks while holding off the enrichment.

Analysts believe the two-month interval was a wait-and-see period as Iran's ninth presidential election was held in June.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a well-known hardliner, won a landslide victory in the election and will be sworn in on August 4. This has raised wide worries over the prospect of the diplomatic solution to the nuclear dispute.

With the European proposal and Iran's new cabinet to come just in days, Tehran's assertion of nuclear determination has once again pushed its nuclear issue back into the spotlight.

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