Iran will continue efforts to develop a full nuclear fuel cycle, despite US pressure on Tehran to abandon a programme it fears may be used to make atomic bombs, a senior Iranian official said on Wednesday.
Iran has said it is trying to build a complete nuclear programme comprising all facets of the nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mining to processing and enrichment.
Tehran says the resulting fuel would be used in nuclear reactors to generate electricity. But many Western governments fear some material or equipment could be diverted to a military programme to make bombs.
"Running a nuclear fuel cycle is our nation's right," influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
"The Americans, with their evil intentions, confront Iran because they do not want Islamic countries to have modern technology," he said.
In a bid to reduce the risk of countries using civilian nuclear programmes to develop weapons capabilities, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and US President George W. Bush have called for internationalising the fuel cycle so that no more countries would be allowed to develop the entire nuclear fuel cycle.
Concerted international pressure following revelations last year that Iran had hidden potentially weapons-related technology for 18 years forced Tehran to agree to snap checks of its nuclear sites and to halt the enrichment of uranium.
But Tehran insists it will resume enrichment - a process which can produce nuclear reactor fuel or bomb-grade material - once it has cleared up doubts about its nuclear programme.
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said in Brussels on Tuesday that Iran was ready to answer all outstanding questions about its atomic plans before a key session of the board of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in June.
Iran wants its case removed from the IAEA's agenda after the June meeting, something which Western diplomats say is unrealistic.