TEHRAN (AFP)
Iran yesterday voiced satisfaction at the revival of talks with the European Union over its controversial nuclear activities, saying the deadlock has been broken without Tehran being called on to suspend sensitive fuel work.
However, EU and Iranian officials maintained that the two sides remain far apart, with Iran insisting on its right to make nuclear fuel and the West fearful that this could be used to manufacture atom bombs.
“The impasse over the nuclear file has been broken” and “from now on we sense a clear perspective for arriving at a compromise,” said Hossein Entezami, spokesman for the Supreme National Security Council which is in charge of Iran’s nuclear projects.
“The very fact that the dangerous process, which began with the resolution of September 24, has stopped constitutes a diplomatic victory,” Entezami said in comments published Thursday by the moderate daily newspaper Shargh.
The International Atomic Energy Agency had on September 24 adopted a resolution leaving the door open to sending Iran before the UN Security Council over its refusal to keep up a freeze on uranium conversion activities, which it resumed in August.
Also in August, European negotiators from Britain, France and Germany – the EU-3 – decided to break off negotiations with Iran, but a fresh round of talks resumed on Wednesday with the parties agreeing to continue discussions next month in Vienna.
Earlier negotiations had failed over Iran’s refusal to accept European offers of trade and economic incentives in exchange for a halt to enrichment activities.
As the fresh talks opened, Tehran reiterated what it described as its right to uranium enrichment, which it had suspended as a goodwill gesture in October 2003, under the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“The message of the Iranian delegation is to insist on the need for a precise calendar for resuming enrichment inside Iran,” Iranian negotiator Mohammad Mehdi Akundzadeh told the official state news agency IRNA.
Last update on: 23-12-2005