Iran warns the West

October 20, 2009 04:31:11 PM

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Iran headed into new talks with world powers on its nuclear programme on Monday vowing to step up it uranium enrichment if it does not get what it wants from the negotiations.

Iran is to hold talks at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on a proposal for Russia and France to enrich fuel for a research reactor. This would require Iran to hand over the uranium which many western nations say is being built up to develop a nuclear bomb.

But before the talks with France, Russia, the United States and IAEA officials, Iran said it would carry on enriching uranium no matter what happens in Vienna.

Iran Atomic Energy Organisation spokesman Ali Shirzadian said the country will keep on enriching uranium up to the five percent level, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"But if the negotiations do not yield the desired results, Iran will start enriching uranium to the 20 percent level for its Tehran reactor. It will never give up this right," the spokesman added.

Shirzadian said the third-party enrichment deal was a "test" for world powers. "This issue is a test for the Western powers to show how honest they are in their commitments," he said.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei was expected to open the meeting, after which the agency's deputy director general for external relations and policy coordination, Vilmos Cserveny, would take the reins.

The exact line-up was not yet clear, but the US delegation was to be headed by Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman and would include Washington's envoy to the IAEA, Glyn Davies.

France's IAEA ambassador Florence Mangin would head her country's delegation.

The Iranian delegation would be headed by the Islamic regime's ambassdor to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh.

The talks, to begin at 3:00 pm (1300 GMT) and which could run to Tuesday or Wednesday, are the latest attempt by the international powers to restrict Iran's nuclear drive. The UN Security Council has already imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran for refusing to stop its enrichment.

Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States have led the talks with Iran.

Western powers have threatened to move for more sanctions unless Iran falls in line with UN resolutions. Iran has denied it is trying to build a bomb and China and Russia have spoken against new sanctions, though analysts said both could be more ready to make concessions.

The Vienna talks will discuss a plan put forward this month under which Iran will allow Russia and France to further enrich its uranium to levels required to fuel a research reactor in Tehran which makes isotopes for medical uses such as cancer treatment.

Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for a nuclear reactor or, in much purer form, as the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

Iran has so far amassed around 1,500 kilogrammes of low-enriched uranium at its plant in Natanz, in spite of UN calls to halt the work until the IAEA can determine that the activities are entirely peaceful as Tehran claims.

But Iran needs medium-enriched uranium to run the research reactor and the fuel for that reactor is running low.

Iran agreed during talks in Geneva on October 1 to consider sending low-enriched uranium abroad for further purification and subsequent return to Iran.

Diplomats have described the proposal as a "win-win" solution: the Iranians would get the fuel they needed, while at the same time, Western fears would be allayed that the material could be used to make a bomb.

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