Iran to Resume 'some Nuclear Activities'

Iran today said it would resume some nuclear activities, raising the possibility that the country would be brought before the UN security council on the grounds of nuclear proliferation.

Last November, Tehran agreed to suspend all nuclear activities while negotiations about its nuclear ambitions continued with Britain, France and Germany.

The Iranian government insists its nuclear programme is entirely related to power generation, but the US claims it is planning to build nuclear weapons.

Britain, France and Germany have warned Tehran that they would back US calls for Iran to be brought before the UN security council if the country resumed sensitive nuclear work. That could result in the imposition of sanctions.

"We will resume some nuclear activities," the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, told reporters. "What activities [will be resumed] or when is still under study. It will be announced in the future."

The announcement came during a conference on nuclear proliferation in New York on yesterday, and prompted Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, to urge Iran not to "take a unilateral decision to initiate any activities that are currently suspended".

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, last week said Tehran expected to restart some uranium reprocessing activities at its uranium conversion facility in Isfahan within a week. However, he added that the Islamic republic was unlikely to resume actual uranium enrichment, which involves injecting uranium gas into centrifuges, at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.

"The discussion now is not about resuming uranium enrichment but about carrying out some activities. [Actual] uranium enrichment will remain the last option after all other options have been exhausted," Mr Asefi said. He did not elaborate further.

Iranian and European negotiators have been trying to come to an arrangement that ultimately would defuse the nuclear crisis. Those talks have been progressing slowly, amid Iranian warnings that they were in danger of collapsing.