Iran rejects EU's demands to quit nuclear program

IRAN yesterday rejected demands by the EU to abandon its uranium enrichment program, but reasserted its readiness to provide guarantees it will not build a nuclear weapon.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran already had the technology required to develop nuclear fuel and would not reverse the situation.

"If the demand is that we don't master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, it's out of the question because we have reached that point," Asefi said.

"But if Europeans want assurances that we only make peaceful use of nuclear energy, we are ready to give guarantees."

Asefi said the guarantees Iran was prepared to offer would be within the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

According to a confidential document made available to news agencies on Saturday, Britain, France and Germany have agreed to give Iran a November deadline for complying with concerns about its nuclear capability.

Ahead of today's start of a key meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the document

proposes a so-called "trigger mechanism," warning of possible "further steps" which diplomats defined as shorthand for referral of Iran's case to the UN Security Council.