Iran insists on rapid resumption of nuclear activities

Iran Focus: London, Jul. 30 – Iran on Saturday rejected a request by the European trio – Britain, France, and Germany – to extend a deadline for offering a final set of proposals on the Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear project, insisting that Tehran would go ahead with resumption of suspended
nuclear activities “over the next few days”. Iran Focus

London, Jul. 30 – Iran on Saturday rejected a request by the European trio – Britain, France, and Germany – to extend a deadline for offering a final set of proposals on the Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear project, insisting that Tehran would go ahead with resumption of suspended nuclear activities “over the next few days”.

Earlier on Saturday, the EU-3 ambassadors in Tehran made the request at a meeting with Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator, Hossein Moussavian, a spokesman for Iran’s top security body said.

According to Ali Aghamohammadi, the spokesman for Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Moussavian had been asked to relay a message to Hassan Rowhani, the outgoing SNSC secretary general, in which the EU-3 had requested the deadline be extended from August 1 to August 7.

The EU-3 are expected to offer a package of incentives to Iran to put aside its nuclear ambitions.

Aghamohammadi said that Iran stood by its demand that the EU-3 make their proposal by August 1, adding that the date had been agreed in advance, during the talks between Rowhani and the EU-3’s foreign ministers in London. The EU-3 also asked to meet Iranian officials on August 30 and in September during the United Nations’ annual gathering of heads of states to further discuss their proposals. Aghamohammadi said that such a request meant that Iran would have to continue the suspension of its nuclear activities for a virtually indefinite period.

On Wednesday, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami announced, “Whether the Europeans mention our right to resume activities at [the uranium conversion facility in”> Isfahan or not, we will definitely resume it regardless”.

The semi-official daily Jomhouri Islami wrote today that Iran’s Rowhani informed the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, in a letter that his government had decided to resume suspended nuclear activities in some of the sites in Iran over the next few days.