Iran and EU in dispute over nuclear issue

By Parisa Hafezi

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran said it would restart some
sensitive nuclear fuel activities on Monday unless it received
European Union proposals on Sunday to break a diplomatic
impasse over the country’s atomic program.

In London, the British Foreign Office said on Sunday that
EU members Britain, France and Germany had informed Iran only
that “full and detailed proposals” would be delivered in a
week.

The EU plans to offer economic and political incentives in
return for Iran’s indefinite suspension of uranium enrichment,
nuclear fuel reprocessing and related activities.

The EU and the United States suspect Iran wants to use
these processes to make nuclear weapons and say if Iran
restarts them, they will ask the U.N. Security Council to
impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Tehran insists its
program is peaceful and it only wants nuclear power to generate
electricity.

“If we do not receive the EU proposal today, tomorrow
morning we will start part of (the) activities in Isfahan’s
uranium conversion facility,” Ali Aghamohammadi, spokesman for
the Supreme National Security Council, told state television.

The conversion plant near the central city of Isfahan takes
processed uranium ore, mined in Iran’s central desert, and
turns it into uranium hexafluoride gas. This gas can be pumped
into centrifuges that spin at supersonic speed to enrich
uranium.

Enriched uranium is used in nuclear power plants, but if
highly enriched can be used in atomic weaponry.

An EU diplomat familiar with the nuclear negotiations said
any resumption of activities at the Isfahan plant would mean
Iran had broken an agreement it made in Paris in November,
2004.

According to the agreement Iran committed “on a voluntary
basis, to continue and extend its suspension to include all
enrichment related and reprocessing activities” and “all tests
or production at any uranium conversion installation.”

The agreement also states: “The suspension will be
sustained while negotiations proceed on a mutually acceptable
agreement on long-term arrangements.”

The EU diplomat told Reuters: “We’ve been absolutely clear
all along that if they did something like this it would be
considered a breach of our agreement.”

DEADLINE

Iran set a deadline of 1230 GMT on Sunday for the EU to
submit its package of incentives, but said it would continue
talks with the bloc and would not resume uranium enrichment.

After the deadline passed, Iranian negotiators began a
meeting to decide their response.

Iran has said the parties originally agreed on an Aug. 1
deadline for submission of the proposals, and that the EU’s
so-called “Big Three” — Britain, France and Germany — had
asked for this to be extended by six days. Tehran said it
rejected any delay.

The European countries however say there had been agreement
at talks with Iran in Geneva in May that the EU would submit
proposals by the end of July or “early August.”

Regardless of the date, diplomats have expressed little
hope a deal can be done.

Iran said it had little to fear from referral to the United
Nations. Russia and China, which both hold a veto as permanent
members of the Security Council, have close trade links with
Iran and are less keen on the idea of sanctions than other
members.

“There is no legal basis for Iran’s case to be referred to
the U.N. Security Council. Besides, being referred to the
council is not the end of the world. Some officials even
believe it is better to be referred to the council,” Iranian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a news
conference.

(Additional reporting by Jon Hemming in Tehran and Madeline
Chambers in London)