 TEHERAN - Iran is prepared to keep its controversial uranium enrichment programme suspended for several months, provided negotiations with the European Union make progress, chief negotiator Hossein Moussavian said on Wednesday. | This is for today only, of course. |
"This is not a problem of days or months," Moussavian told AFP. "What's important is to reach a basic agreement which guarantees that negotiations can be successful." If such an agreement is reached, "negotiations can continue for several months." Tehran agreed in November to suspend its enrichment activities as a goodwill gesture, but the Europeans want the suspension to become permanent, a demand the Iranians have termed "absurd". | They'll have a different word than 'absurd' when the Israeli Air Force comes calling. |
Iran says it has the right to enrich uranium to low levels to produce atomic fuel for civilian power stations, but highly enriched uranium can provide the core for an atomic bomb. The European Union is currently considering, ahead of a meeting next week with Iranian negotiators in Geneva, a proposal by Tehran to allow it to produce low-level enriched uranium on a small scale. | A fable about the camel's nose seems appropriate ... |
"We are involved in negotiations and as long as we are, suspension continues," said Moussavian. However, he repeated Iran's refusal to renounce efforts to master the uranium enrichment cycle as sought by the three European nations of Britain, France and Germany involved in negotiations. "We must master the enrichment and production cycle of nuclear fuel," he said. |