IRAN:Iran has ruled out halting or limiting sensitive nuclear work in exchange for trade and other incentives from major powers and instead suggested it could announce new developments in the programme this week.
Iran marks its National Day of Nuclear Technology today, an occasion president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used last year to proclaim industrial uranium enrichment capacity. Enriched uranium can be used as fuel in nuclear power plants or, if refined much further, provide material for weapons.
Foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a weekly news conference yesterday: "Any incentive that calls for the suspension of enrichment or somehow undermines or limits the Iranian nation's nuclear rights . . . is rejected by the Iranian government and is unacceptable." Mr Ahmadinejad will attend an event in Tehran today to celebrate Iran's nuclear achievements.
- (Reuters)