From rxpgnews.com
Iran demands enrichment suspension struck off the talks agenda
By DPA,
Apr 22, 2007 - 4:08:44 PM
Tehran, April 22 - The Western precondition of Iran suspending its uranium enrichment programme before resuming nuclear talks should be taken off the agenda, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said Sunday.
'Suspension should be excluded from the agenda - Iran's nuclear rights should once and for all be acknowledged by all relevant countries,' the spokesman said at his weekly press briefing in Tehran.
Hosseini however hoped that the talks between Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on April 25 would still 'prepare suitable grounds for agreements beneficial for both sides.'
The spokesman did not disclose the venue of the talks.
Hosseini once again refused to give the exact number of centrifuges in the uranium enrichment plant of Natanz in central Iran, reiterating that Iran had reached an industrial scale in its enrichment process.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency -, Iran has installed 1,312 centrifuges within eight cascades of 164 each in Natanz, which is less than half of the 3,000 centrifuges Iran intended to install in Natanz by March 2007.
The spokesman also refrained from saying how many of the more than 1,300 installed centrifuges were fed with uranium hexafluoride gas - for the full enrichment of the converted uranium from the neighbouring Isfahan plant.
'It will take a long time until sufficient nuclear fuel is produced for the Bushehr power plant -,' Hosseini said.
Iran's final aim is to install 50,000 centrifuges in Natanz within two to four years for creating its own nuclear fuel cycle.
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