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Iran intends to engage in industrial-scale uranium enrichment — Foreign Ministry

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says the agreement between Iran and the six world powers signed in Geneva in November was “a truce between the parties”
At the uranium enrichment plant Natanz in central Iran EPA/KAZEM GHANE
At the uranium enrichment plant Natanz in central Iran
© EPA/KAZEM GHANE

TEHRAN, August 19. /ITAR-TASS/. Iran intends to engage in industrial-scale uranium enrichment, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday.

The official said Tehran was trying to regain this right during the negotiations with the six world powers (five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany).

“At the current negotiations, we have indicated the uranium enrichment volume required to meet our demand. However, the final agreement on the Iranian nuclear program should also take into account Iran’s industrial-scale uranium enrichment volume.”

Araghchi said the agreement between Iran and the six world powers signed in Geneva in November was “a truce between the parties,” adding that “the relevant restrictions accepted by Tehran are not permanent.” He also said that under the Geneva agreement, Iran “did not assume the obligation to suspend its nuclear activity.”

Araghchi said the nuclear problem should be studied in all its three aspects: technical, legal and political. The omission of even one of them “may distort the view on the Iranian nuclear program],” he said.

Araghchi added that “even if Iran fails to achieve the desired results during the negotiations, no catastrophe will happen.” “We will return to our nuclear program, and they (the West) - to their sanctions against Tehran. But the atmosphere that existed before that will never be returned," he said.