FM: Iran to Continue Uranium Enrichment Activities

(FNA)- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif once again reiterated Tehran's inalienable right to use the nuclear technology for civilian purposes, and said Tehran will not give up even an iota of its uranium enrichment activities.

Zarif’s remarks came as Iran and the Group 5+1 group (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) are slated to start a new round of expert-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear energy program in Vienna, Austria, later on Wednesday.

“Tehran will never give up its right to nuclear enrichment for peaceful purposes,” Zarif told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo on Wednesday.

The Iranian foreign minister underlined that Iran’s inalienable right to nuclear technology, and said, “It is impossible to dismantle science or technology.”

In similar remarks in January, Zarif said that the United States has come to the conclusion that Iran’s right to uranium enrichment is not up for discussion.

“For a decade, there was only one concept in the West’s mind, that there existed a ‘zero enrichment’ option only, and that Iran’s capability in uranium enrichment had to be stopped,” the Iranian foreign minister told the Swiss paper Neue Zurcher Zeitung.

On Tuesday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi praised Tehran's success in the talks with the world powers, and said Tehran has stopped its 20-percent uranium enrichment because it had enough stockpile to satiate its needs, while it could also establish its right of low enrichment in the talks with the world powers.

“We have established the 3.5-percent enrichment right and this is a success for us,” Araqchi said, addressing a meeting of the Assembly of Experts in Tehran yesterday.

He further noted the part of agreement which is seen as an important concession by Iran, and stressed, “We have stopped the 20% enrichment because we didn’t need it (any more).”

On November 24, Iran and the world powers sealed a six-month Joint Plan of Action to lay the groundwork for the full resolution of the West’s decade-old dispute with Iran over its nuclear energy program. In exchange for Tehran’s confidence-building bid to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities, the Sextet of world powers agreed to lift some of the existing sanctions against Tehran and continue talks with the country to settle all problems between the two sides.

Then after several rounds of experts talks on how to enforce the agreement, Iran and the six major world powers finalized an agreement on ways to implement the deal.

Based on the deal, Iran halted its 20-percent enrichment activity in January.

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi underlined that Iran's enrichment right has been clearly stipulated in the Geneva accord sealed by Tehran and the six major world powers late in November, adding that the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) had already granted the right to the country, however.