President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday ruled out talks on Iran's "undeniable" nuclear rights, as world powers await Tehran's new proposals for the basis of fresh talks on its controversial atomic drive. "In our view the nuclear question is finished. We will not negotiate over Iran's undeniable rights," the hard-liner told a Tehran news conference.
"What we have announced is co-operation in two parts: co-operation on peaceful use of clean atomic energy and preventing a proliferation of atomic weapons," Ahmadinejad said. Iran's uranium enrichment work is at the centre of the stand-off with the international community as the process can be used to make nuclear fuel as well as the fissile core of an atom bomb.
Tehran insists it has a right to enrich uranium to make nuclear fuel as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and vehemently denies seeking a bomb. Ahmadinejad said Tehran would continue co-operating with the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has been probing Iran's nuclear programme for years.
But "if anyone wants to interfere in the nuclear programme beyond the law, that path is blocked," he warned. "From our point of view the nuclear file does not exist.. but what exists is the file of animosity." He underlined the Islamic republic's stand just hours before the IAEA board of governors gathered in Vienna for a meeting to probe claims that Iran conducted experiments aimed at making a nuclear bomb.
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