Tehran Declaration basis for talks

An Iranian envoy insists that any future negotiation on Iran’s civilian nuclear program must be based on provisions set in the Tehran nuclear fuel swap declaration.

“Iran will consider different responses to Tehran declaration before making a decision on how to proceed with further nuclear talks,” said Iran’s Ambassador to Italy Mohammad Ali Hosseini, quoted by IRNA on Wednesday.

“The Islamic Republic will, under the international law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, pursue its natural rights to nuclear energy and has so far taken a number of confidence-building measures to demonstrate its sincerity,” added Hosseini, a former foreign ministry spokesman.

“However, all such Iranian measures have been stalled by illegitimate and biased policies of a number of countries,” the envoy noted.

Hosseini further accused the West of hypocrisy and double standards on Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Iran issued a nuclear fuel swap declaration with Brazil and Turkey in mid-May in a bid to resolve the standoff on its nuclear program depicted as a threat in the West despite assurances from the country and the International Atomic Energy Agency on the non-diversionary nature of the program.

Based on the declaration, Iran agreed to ship out most of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for 20-percent enriched uranium for Tehran’s research reactor, which produces radio medicine for cancer patients.