Iran To Resume Nuclear Research

Says Program Is For Electricity Generation, Not Uranium Enrichment

(AP) 
"The research in this field will have little to do with the production of nuclear fuel," Saeedi said, adding, as the ElBaradei document confirmed, that Iran planned to inform the IAEA.

"It has been decided that the International Atomic Energy Agency will be informed today about (our) research in the field of nuclear fuel. Research will resume in cooperation and coordination with the IAEA in the next few days," Saeedi said.

Iran has come under heavy international pressure from the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, and the West to abandon its program to produce fuel for its Russian-built nuclear reactor that is due to come on stream this year and its future nuclear power plants.

Iran has vowed it will never give up its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel inside the country.

While refusing to renounce the enrichment of uranium, Iran suspended many aspects of its nuclear fuel program in 2003 as a gesture of good will during negotiations with the big three European powers, Britain, France and Germany.

The negotiations collapsed in August after Iran resumed uranium reprocessing activities, a step before enrichment, at its Uranium Conversion Facility in Isfahan, central Iran.

But the two sides resumed dialogue last month, but talks have so far failed to resolve the dispute. Further talks are scheduled for later this month.

Iran's decision to resume nuclear research coincided with the announcement by Asefi that Iran will reject the U.S. and European-backed Russian nuclear proposal if it sought to move any Iranian enrichment program to Russia, its northern neighbor.

"The Russian proposal is ambiguous. We have to talk to the Russians to see what are the details," Asefi told reporters.

"If it means enrichment be carried out (only) in Russia, we have said it is not acceptable. But if it is a complementary plan, we will study it," Asefi said.

Extremists within the increasingly hard-line Iranian government have denounced the Russian proposal as a "dirty trick."