Top negotiator says Iran firm on nuclear enrichment

Iran Focus: Tehran, Aug. 24 – The United States and the
Europeans will gain nothing from adopting a tough line
against Iran and taking it to the United Nations Security
Council, Iran’s new hard-line chief nuclear negotiator
warned in an interview that appeared on Wednesday on a
Persian-language website. Iran Focus

Tehran, Aug. 24 – The United States and the Europeans will gain nothing from adopting a tough line against Iran and taking it to the United Nations Security Council, Iran’s new hard-line chief nuclear negotiator warned in an interview that appeared on Wednesday on a Persian-language website.

The ultra-Islamist Ali Larijani, the new secretary general of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), said in the interview that his government was adamant to go ahead with the activation of the principal uranium enrichment site at Natanz in central Iran, the website Farda, which belongs to the ultra-conservative faction, reported.

“We expect that the Natanz plant should continue its existence in a logical manner. Natanz is part of our nuclear fuel cycle and we are adamant about it. Of course, this has to pass through the labyrinth of negotiations”, Larijani, a former brigadier general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said.

Asked if he thought Iran would be referred to the UN Security Council, Larijani replied, “That’s a logical possibility. Despite all the flexibility that the team under Mr. [Hassan”> Rowhani [Larijani’s predecessor”> showed towards the Europeans, eventually we saw that the Europeans dealt with us in an unscrupulous way. So you can’t discount the possibility, but we should try to resolve the issue in a friendly way. Our objective is still to keep the nuclear fuel cycle”.

Larijani dismissed European assertions that the activation of the Uranium Conversion Facility in Isfahan was in violation of Iran’s November 2004 agreement with the European trio of Britain, France and Germany. He said the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors had acted “out of context” in adopting a resolution against Iran earlier this month.

“Many foreign experts said after the resolution was adopted against Iran that Europe should not have reacted in this way. In any case, Iran did not accept the resolution and declared this”, he said.

Larijani, a trusted confidant of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is on the shortlist of candidates for the still vacant post of First Vice President, the cabinet’s senior executive position.