Iran gives response to EU pressure on nuclear activities: France

AFP: Iran has given a response to EU pressure for it to suspend uranium enrichment, the French foreign ministry said Friday.
Iranian authorities delivered their reply late Thursday to Britain, France and Germany and to EU high representative Javier Solana late Thursday, the ministry said without divulging its contents.
AFP

PARIS – Iran has given a response to EU pressure for it to suspend uranium enrichment, the French foreign ministry said Friday.

Iranian authorities delivered their reply late Thursday to Britain, France and Germany and to EU high representative Javier Solana late Thursday, the ministry said without divulging its contents.

“We are in the process of analysing the elements of the response,” ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous said.

The three EU countries have pushed Iran to accept a suspension in order to head off possible UN sanctions.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is poised to contact the UN Security Council over Iran’s nuclear activities.

The United States, which has a permanent seat on the council, charges that Tehran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

The IAEA was scheduled to put out an official report on Iran’s activities on Friday or Saturday, roughly two weeks before the UN agency’s 35-nation board of governors meets in Vienna November 25 to consider the Iranian issue.

Ali Akbar Nateq Nuri, the top advisor to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in his Friday prayer sermon in Tehran that the Islamic republic planned to resist what he called unfair pressure from Europe.

“They tell us to suspend enrichment, but it is none of your business,” said Nateq Nuri, noting that fuel cycle work was permitted under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Iran’s student news agency ISNA quoted an unidentified official close to the negotiations as saying: “Iran gave its response to the Europeans last night (Thursday). There will not be any more negotiations in Tehran because the Europeans must now decide on the Iranian response.”

He added: “They have to examine the Iranian response in their capitals, which could take a day or a week.”

In return for Iran agreeing to curb its nuclear ambitions, Europe’s three major powers have offered civilian nuclear technology, including access to nuclear fuel, increased trade and help with Tehran’s regional security concerns.