Iran warned it would go on enriching uranium if it came under attack as its negotiators prepared for talks with six world powers tomorrow aimed at defusing a crisis over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.
Expectations of any breakthrough in an eight-year-old stand-off over Iran's nuclear ambitions were low ahead of a second round of negotiations between Iran and the powers in the Turkish city of Istanbul tomorrow and Saturday.
Iranian negotiators told Reuters they had no fresh offer to make for a nuclear fuel swap but they were ready to discuss a deal based on terms offered last year, which were rejected then as being too little, too late.
A fuel swap deal, under which Iran would part with some of its low enriched uranium (LEU) in exchange for fuel specially processed to run a Tehran reactor producing medical isotopes, would build confidence but not resolve core disputes.
Any accord is likely to hinge on persuading Iran to hand over most of its uranium stockpile to dispel fears that it was retaining enough of the material to develop a nuclear bomb by enriching it to a very high level of fissile purity.
There is international concern that Iran's declared civilian nuclear energy programme is a cover for pursuit of atom bombs.
The six big powers dealing with Iran via European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton are the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.
On the eve of the talks, speaking in Moscow, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), struck a defiant stance, saying enrichment would continue even if nuclear facilities were attacked.
"We have provided for another facility in Fordow near Qom," Mr Soltanieh said. "It is, so to speak, a reserve facility, so that if a site is attacked, we can continue the enrichment process."
Iran's main enrichment plant is in Natanz. Fordow, a much smaller site that Tehran did not reveal to IAEA inspectors for over two years, is under construction inside a mountain bunker.
The United States and Israel have not ruled military action out if diplomacy fails and Iran nears atomic weapons capability.
In Istanbul, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the talks should address prospects for easing economic sanctions on Tehran if it is more forthcoming with IAEA inspectors.
"There should also be other questions [on the agenda], including the prospects for lifting sanctions in accordance with how much more effectively Iran cooperates with the IAEA and resolves existing questions [about its nuclear activity]," he said in remarks carried by Russia's Itar-Tass news agency.
Reuters