Iran refuses to budge over enrichment demands

Iran said it was ready to negotiate over its nuclear ambitions, but refused to budge on demands that it suspend uranium enrichment.

The refusal came despite a looming UN Security deadline and the threat of tougher sanctions.

Speaking separately yesterday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and two other top officials called for new talks, suggesting an Iranian attempt to convey flexibility on the eve of the deadline.

But neither Mr Ahmadinejad nor Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Ali Larijani, Tehran’s senior nuclear negotiator, offered what the Security Council was demanding – an immediate and unconditional stop to enrichment, which can generate energy, but also create the fissile material for nuclear warheads.

Mr Ahmadinejad, speaking to a crowd of thousands in Iran, suggested his country would be ready to stop its enrichment programme only if Western nations did the same – something the United States and others with similar programs were unlikely to even consider.

“Justice demands that those who want to hold talks with us shut down their nuclear fuel cycle programme, too,” he said. “Then, we can hold dialogue under a fair atmosphere.”

Mr Mottaki, at a news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, said talks on the nuclear dispute should try to achieve an agreement allowing “Iran to achieve its rights” while eliminating “concerns” about its nuclear ambitions.

And Mr Larijani said his country was “looking for ways and means to start negotiations.”

Asked what Iran was seeking, Mr Larijani said: “Constructive dialogue that could ... address the concerns” of both Tehran, which insists on enrichment as its right, and the world powers that fear the program would be used to develop nuclear arms.

While telling reporters his country was prepared to deliver “assurances that there would be no deviation ... toward a nuclear weapons programme,” he offered no new suggestions – and indirectly ruled out the key international demand that Tehran suspend enrichment, saying that was just a “pretext” to put political pressure on his country.

He was even more direct in rejecting an enrichment freeze as a precondition for negotiations in talks with Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, said diplomats.

“He ruled out suspension and said Iran was not afraid of (UN) sanctions,” one of the diplomats told The Associated Press.

The diplomat said Mr Larijani told Mr ElBaradei that Iran could only consider an enrichment freeze as a result of talks – and not before sitting down at the negotiating table.

Iran has rejected the Security Council resolution as “illegal,” and said it would not give up its right to enrich under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.