Iran says 'no reason' to back down in nuclear dispute

The comment from Ali Hosseini-Tash, one of Iran's nuclear negotiators, came as Moscow urged the Islamic republic to return to a voluntary freeze of sensitive enrichment work that could deliver the clerical regime the capacity to make a bomb.

"Iran has predicted and studied the consequences of any possible Security Council decision. There is no reason for Iran to retreat," Hosseini-Tash was quoted as saying by state television.

"Any possible Security Council resolution against Iran's peaceful nuclear activities will not have any legal or rational foundations. It is not the last loop in the chain of decisions, especially when the US and the West are not sure of an agreement among Security Council members," he said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board has already reported Iran to the Security Council, and the next IAEA meeting on March 6 could prompt action from New York unless Iran returns to the moratorium on uranium enrichment.

The Islamic republic insists it only wants to generate electricity, although enrichment work to make reactor fuel can also be extended to make the fissile core of a nuclear bomb.

The diplomacy is currently hinging on a proposal by Moscow to enrich Iran's uranium on Russian soil, something that would keep the sensitive process outside Iran yet at the same time provide it with nuclear fuel.

"The Russian proposal to create a joint venture for the enrichment of uranium in Russia is part of a general effort to remove concerns on the Iranian nuclear programme," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists in Moscow.

"We are convinced that, among other components of this effort, a moratorium on enrichment of uranium in Iran is required until all issues have been clarified by the experts of the IAEA," Lavrov said.

But Iran still appears unwilling to reinstate a suspension agreed to in 2003 -- but which it has breached since last June's shock presidential election win by hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Diplomats said unless Iran's enrichment research work restarted in January is halted, Security Council action looks inevitable.

"The problem is not of the quantity of enrichment, but the know-how. This is a red line that Iran must not be allowed to cross," a Western diplomat told AFP.

If Iran masters enrichment, it would acquire what is seen as a "breakout capacity" enabling it to divert -- even secretly -- its energy programme to making weapons.

"The West cannot confidently say that Iran does not have a clandestine programme," the diplomat said.

The underlying tensions overshadowed Iran's assertion on Sunday that talks with Moscow were making "progress".

Russia's chief nuclear negotiator with Iran, Sergei Kiriyenko, also downplayed Iran's more upbeat assessment of the relationship.

"This is a complex issue and the negotiations are difficult," he told the official ITAR-TASS news agency in an interview on his return to Moscow following weekend talks in Iran.

"There is little time left for further agreements," the news agency quoted Kiriyenko as saying.

ITAR-TASS also quoted an unnamed source within the Russian delegation as saying the result of the talks there amounted to "a small half-step forward."

The source said Tehran was still insisting that all scientific research and development work on uranium enrichment be carried out within Iran, a condition which the source said "defeats the very purpose of the joint venture" for uranium enrichment in Russia.

"Russia cannot go forward with creation of a joint venture under such terms," the source said, adding that this would be in contravention of the last IAEA resolution on Iran calling for the immediate halt of uranium enrichment work.

Iran was also under pressure from Japan, where Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was on a three-day visit as part of a global tour amid last-ditch efforts to escape Security Council action.

Iran "has lost international trust as it has ignored the IAEA's policies for such a long time," Mottaki's Japanese counterpart Taro Aso told a parliamentary committee ahead of their talks.

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