Iran Enrichment Remarks Hurt Nuclear Talks

Reuters:

The [British] government said on Wednesday that comments by Iran's top nuclear negotiator have undermined the possibility of further talks with the European Union to resolve an international dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme.

Britain said Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani's comments signalling that Iran would resume a key activity in the enrichment of uranium could scupper attempts to find common ground for talks with Tehran about its nuclear ambitions.

"The UK regrets recent comments by Dr Larijani, suggesting that Iran would shortly resume centrifuge activity," the Foreign Office said in a statement.

"Comments and conditions such as those made by Dr Larijani seem to be aimed at prejudging these discussions and preventing the possibility of finding a basis for negotiations." READ MORE

The United States and other Western countries accuse Tehran of using a domestic nuclear programme as a front for seeking to build atomic weapons. Iran denies the charges and says its nuclear programme is for generating electricity only.

The EU has offered to discuss a Russian proposal on uranium enrichment with Iran. That proposal helped convince governors of U.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to vote against referring Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

Britain said that, while it was willing to meet Iranian officials to explore the possibility of resuming discussions, Larijani's comments raised "real and urgent proliferation-related concerns" given that Iran had concealed sensitive nuclear work for nearly 20 years.

The statement is similar to comments from France earlier this week but it was not released on behalf of the so-called EU3 (Britain, France and Germany), who have been the leading European countries in nuclear talks with Tehran.

Moscow's offer to enrich Iranian uranium on its own soil and then return it has yet to be fully explored, although Iran has already said it will only accept proposals that allow it to conduct a full nuclear cycle at home.

If accepted it could minimise Tehran's chances for acquiring the critical technology needed to make weapons-grade uranium.

Britain said centrifuge activity in Iran would run counter to repeated requests in resolutions from the IAEA, which is charged with monitoring nuclear activity around the world.

London reiterated that any resumption of enrichment related activity would seriously aggravate the situation created by the resumption of uranium conversion activity in Iran in August which brought an end to nuclear talks with the EU.