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Iran and EU in dispute over nuclear issue

Posted on: Sunday, 31 July 2005, 10:58 CDT

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)

Source: REUTERS

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