Iran bids to open out nuclear talks beyond Europe

Iran does not consider Britain, France and Germany to be the sole negotiating partners on its nuclear programme and believes the process should be opened out beyond Europe, the foreign ministry said Sunday.
"We will continue negotiating with them, but on the other hand we will not restrict our negotiations to being with just these three countries," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said of the so-called EU-3.
Britain, France and Germany have been engaged in close to two years of tough talks with the Islamic republic but Asefi said that Iran has now also been talking with countries such as Japan, Malaysia and South Africa.
"We want to have negotiations with other countries, it is up to the Europeans not to remove themselves from the negotiations," he said, accusing the EU-3 of refusing to recognise Iran's right to the nuclear fuel cycle.
Countries from the Non-Aligned Movement - notably South Africa and Malaysia - have been more sympathetic to Iran's effort to possess nuclear fuel facilities.
"The Europeans did not live up to commitments. If the European cannot live up to their commitments, we will negotiate with other countries as is our right," he added.
The EU-3 have already reacted to Iran's challenge, with France insisting Friday that the trio have been working in conjunction with their 22 other EU partners as well as the IAEA's full 35-nation board of governors.
The US State Department has also said Iran was trying to "change the subject from what the real issue is, and that is their continued pursuit of nuclear weapons."
According to Asefi, Iran's "main negotiating partner is the International Atomic Energy Agency" - the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog - and said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei had been informed of this.
Iran is unhappy with the EU-3 after they demanded a total halt to fuel cycle work in exchange for a package of trade, security and technology incentives. Iran maintains such work for peaceful purposes is a right of any signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Iran has rejected the deal, and in protest resumed uranium conversion activities, the first step in making enriched uranium which is fuel for power reactors but can also be the raw material for atom bombs.
The resumption of this work, which Iran had suspended last November to start talks with the EU, has scuttled the negotiations and could lead to Iran being brought before the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions.