Iran says will not negotiate on atomic fuel work

TEHRAN, June 12: Iran's government today said it would not negotiate over its right to enrich uranium, the nuclear-fuel making process which six world powers have demanded Tehran stop to benefit from a package of incentives.

''Iran's view on the nuclear fuel cycle has been announced ... we have obtained this technology, it is our obvious right and we do not negotiate over our obvious nuclear rights,'' Government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said.

Iran has been referred to the UN Security Council, where it could face sanctions, after failing to convince the international community that its atomic scientists are only looking to build power stations and not weapons.

The United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China have agreed a set of incentives for Iran on the condition that it stops making nuclear fuel, something Tehran has repeatedly said it will never do.

Chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani yesterday said the demand over uranium enrichment needed clarification.

The Foreign Ministry has said Tehran will send its own counter proposals to the international incentives.

Among the incentives, which Western diplomats say include offers of a light-water reactor and a facility for storing atomic fuel, is a rare US offer to join the European Union's direct talks with Iran.

Although Elham's remarks are a strong indication Iran could reject the package offered, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government does not have the last word on nuclear issues.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has entrusted nuclear matters to the Supreme National Security Council and appointed Larijani as chief negotiator.

REUTERS