Iran Nuke Plans On Hold, Again

Complies With U.N. Request To Wait Before Reopening Nuclear Plant

(AP)  "Our experts are fully prepared in Isfahan to resume activities as soon as the formalities are finished," Rowhani said. "This will be done in less than a week."

Rowhani rebuffed European suggestions that the country was on the brink of breaking treaty obligations, saying that resumption of uranium conversion was within its rights.

Rowhani said Iran was only obliged under a U.N. resolution and the so-called Paris agreement with three European countries to maintain its nuclear freeze as long as negotiations made progress.

"If we feel time is being wasted, then definitely the Paris agreement is not an obstacle," he said.

Foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany warned on Tuesday that Tehran risked triggering an international crisis and could face U.N. sanctions if it restarted its nuclear program.

The moves came on the same day that president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad completed a first step toward taking office, receiving religious approval from Iran's supreme leader.

Ahmadinejad, the hardline former mayor of Tehran who won elections in June, called for the world's stocks of nuclear weapons to be dismantled.

"Global threats, including weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons which are in the hands of dominant powers should be dismantled," Ahmadinejad said during the ceremony, where he was embraced on both cheeks by Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Many observers have predicted the ultra-conservative president, who is to be sworn in by parliament on Saturday, will take a tougher line on Tehran's nuclear talks.