Iran's foreign minister said Tuesday it will never abandon its “legal and obvious” right to nuclear technology and will not curb uranium enrichment, despite talks the West hopes will lead to restraints on the program. The Vienna meeting, which began Monday under the auspices of the UN nuclear agency, offered the first chance to build on tentative deals made at high-level talks in Geneva on Oct. 1 to defuse a standoff over suspicions that Iran's uranium enrichment campaign is covertly intended to develop nuclear weapons. “The meetings with world powers and their behavior shows that Iran's right to have peaceful nuclear technology has been accepted by them. Iran will never abandon its legal and obvious right,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday. Western diplomats said the Vienna talks aimed to flesh out details of an Iranian agreement in principle in Geneva to send low-enriched uranium to Russia and France for further processing as to replenish dwindling fuel stocks of a Tehran reactor that produces radio-isotopes for cancer care. The talks between Iran and Russia, France and the United States had been set to resume at 0800 GMT Tuesday but were delayed for two hours, and then again. But a senior Vienna diplomat said they would formally resume in the afternoon.It was not clear whether the holdup was related to Mottaki's remarks. He also said Iran did not need France to be part of the uranium supply initiative because it had reneged on contracts to deliver nuclear materials in the past. French, US and Russian delegations held more consultations behind closed doors outside the meeting hall.
