Middle East News

Iran vows to make no concessions in future nuclear talks

Sep 28, 2010, 8:58 GMT

Tehran - Tehran on Tuesday insisted that future nuclear talks with world powers would be aimed at acknowledging Iran's rights to pursue civil nuclear programmes and not to make any concessions.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the talks would include the so-called Vienna group, the European Union and the five permanent UN Security Council Members plus Germany (P5+1).

Talks with the Vienna group - the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United States and Russia - are to focus on more technical issues such as a swap of its low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel for a medical reactor in Tehran. Discussions with the EU, represented by foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, and the P5+1, are supposed to be of a political nature.

Mehmanparast said that all talks should affirm Iran's right to pursue nuclear work as signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and IAEA member.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last week that Iran would be ready to hold nuclear talks in October but stressed that it would not make any concessions with regards to its nuclear programmes.

The international community has failed to persuade Iran to give up its controversial uranium enrichment programme.

The UN Security Council, the US and some European Union states have ordered economic sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop enrichment. They suspect it of secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.