Iran to enrich uranium even if fuel supply guaranteed

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran will continue with uranium enrichment, the focus of international fears about its nuclear programme, even if the country is promised supplies of nuclear reactor fuel, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Sunday.

Iran’s “unchangeable policy is to be self-sufficient in fuel production for (nuclear) plants,” Mottaki told reporters. “We are determined to continue peaceful nuclear work until reaching full self-sufficiency.”

The minister was asked whether the Islamic republic would suspend uranium enrichment if it received international guarantees of a fuel supply.

Mottaki said Iran cannot rely on assurances by world powers and most notably the United States, which have not delivered on their nuclear contracts with Iran made before the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Iran has been slapped with three sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a process which can be used to make both nuclear fuel and the fissile core of an atom bomb.