AFP: Iran has managed to ease concerns that it is seeking nuclear weapons and therefore should soon resume sensitive enrichment activity, a top politician was quoted as saying Sunday. “Previously there were many ambiguities in Iran’s case, but today many of the ambiguities have been removed,” Alaeddin Borujerdi, the head of the hardline Iranian parliament’s foreign affairs commission, told the student news agency ISNA. AFP
TEHRAN – Iran has managed to ease concerns that it is seeking nuclear weapons and therefore should soon resume sensitive enrichment activity, a top politician was quoted as saying Sunday.
“Previously there were many ambiguities in Iran’s case, but today many of the ambiguities have been removed,” Alaeddin Borujerdi, the head of the hardline Iranian parliament’s foreign affairs commission, told the student news agency ISNA.
“Therefore, more than before, the conditions have now become prepared so that we can once again resume our activities under the (UN atomic energy) agency’s regulations,” said Borujerdi.
Borujerdi, a former deputy foreign minister and special envoy to Afghanistan, has been tipped as a possible foreign minister in the cabinet of hardline president-elect Mahmood Ahmadinejad, who takes office in August.
“The Islamic republic should make more effort to put an end to the voluntary suspension,” he told ISNA.
Britain, France and Germany are trying to convince Iran to completely abandon its enrichment programme — which could be diverted to military purposes — and have promised to come up with the outlines of a long-term accord by the end of July.
Iran claims it only wants to make atomic fuel for energy purposes and argues it has a right to do so as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It suspended enrichment in October 2003 and widened the freeze last year.
According to European diplomats close to the talks, the forthcoming EU-3 proposal will not satisfy Iranian demands that it be allowed to resume fuel cycle work.
But if Iran does choose to resume enrichment, even under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision, diplomats say it is all but certain of being hauled before the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions.
