With just five days to go before the expiry of a UN Security Council deadline for Iran to freeze uranium enrichment, Tehran insisted on Sunday that the sensitive nuclear fuel cycle work was irreversible.
"The suspension of Iran's activities is media propaganda. Iran's research activities are irreversible," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. The Security Council has given Tehran until Friday to suspend uranium enrichment, a process which makes reactor fuel but can be extended to make weapons, as a "confidence-building" measure.
Iran has refused to do so %u2013 despite growing talk of a possible US military strike %u2013asserting that its nuclear drive is a legal bid to generate energy. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, is to report on Iran's compliance in a week and diplomats predict it is unlikely to reflect well on the Islamic regime. |