Iran said Tuesday it would never suspend uranium enrichment as
demanded by the West, a day after world powers agreed to work on a
new UN resolution to pressure Teheran to back down over its nuclear
program.
Officials from the five permanent UN Security Council members
the United States, France, Russia, China and Britain plus Germany,
who met in London on Monday, also said they were committed to a
negotiated resolution to the standoff.
The United States says "all options" are on the table and
insists it wants a peaceful solution. Russia has voiced concern
about growing talk of military strikes and China Tuesday again
called for a diplomatic solution.
"Suspending uranium enrichment is an illegal and illegitimate
demand... and it will never happen," Iranian Foreign Minister
Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as
saying.
The United Nations imposed limited sanctions on Iran's nuclear
program in December and Teheran faces possible further steps for
ignoring a February 21 deadline to halt enrichment.
Iran's open refusal to halt enrichment, a process it insists it
only wants to make fuel for nuclear power plants, is echoed by some
Iranian officials in private, suggesting the public pronouncements
are more than just rhetoric.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Iran was making a "big
miscalculation" with its defiance. "The comments from Iran are very
worrying... because yet again they are indicating they want to defy
the international community," he said.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said after the
London meeting world powers would hold phone talks tomorrow to
discuss elements of a new resolution.
New steps could include a travel ban on senior Iranian officials
and restrictions on non-nuclear business.
"There is a big chance that we will all be able to agree
quickly, including the Russians and the Chinese, the Americans, the
British and the French, on a second resolution with economic
sanctions," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said.
He also said in his televised comments that military strikes on
Iranian atomic sites were "absolutely not an issue".
Iran's ambassador to Moscow, Gholamreza Ansari, said Iran "may
retaliate anywhere" if it came under US attack. Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's top authority has said US interests
would be hit if his country was targeted.
Iran, the world's fourth biggest oil producer, runs a few
hundred centrifuges used for enrichment. It is setting up the first
of 3,000 new machines for what it calls "industrial-scale"
enrichment, even though its first atomic power plant is still being
built and will use fuel supplied by Russia.
(China Daily via agencies February 28, 2007)
