[An Nahar] Iran on Sunday rejected demands the West is reportedly to submit at talks due to take place in days, saying it will neither close its Fordo nuclear bunker nor give up higher-level uranium enrichment.Those two demands, outlined by European and U.S. diplomats to The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
newspaper, were "irrational," the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, told ISNA news agency in a lengthy interview.
Fordo, an underground bunker near the holy city of Qom, "is built underground because of sanctions and the threats of attacks," he pointed out.
"If they do not threaten us and guarantee that no aggression will occur, then there would be no need for countries to build facilities underground. They should change their behavior and language," he said.
Iran's enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity would likewise continue, despite unease from members of the P5+1 group -- the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany -- that it produced uranium stock just a few steps short of military-grade 90-percent purity, Abbasi Davani said.
"We do not see any rationale for such a request from the P5+1," he said.