Istanbul - Iran warned it would go on enriching uranium if it came under attack as its negotiators prepared for talks with six world powers on Friday aimed at defusing a crisis over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.
The United States said it expected no “big breakthroughs” in an eight-year-old stand-off over Iran's nuclear ambitions in a return to negotiations between Iran and the powers in the Turkish city of Istanbul on Friday 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 by the powers as being too little, too late.
Such a swap, under which Iran would part with 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 LEU stockpile to dispel suspicions that it was retaining enough of the material to develop a nuclear bomb by eventually 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.
Washington wanted the pending talks to lead to a “meaningful and practical process” addressing central concerns about the nature of Iran's nuclear activity, said Undersecretary of State Williams Burns, who will head the US delegation in Istanbul.
Although Washington anticipated no breakthroughs on the broader issues in Istanbul, it was willing to discuss a fuel swap proposal updated to reflect Iran's progress in enrichment since 2009, State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said.
The six powers are the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany. A meeting in Geneva last month yielded no accord, after a hiatus in talks of more than a year.
In Moscow on Thursday, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), struck a defiant stance, saying enrichment would continue even if its nuclear facilities came under military attack.
“We have provided for another facility in Fordow near Qom,” 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 complex 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.
But tougher sanctions and possible sabotage that may have slowed Iran's nuclear advance could buy extra time for diplomacy and reduce the risk of military conflict, at least for now. - Reuters