By IANS
Tokyo : Iran rejects any new incentives offered by world powers in return for suspending uranium enrichment, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said.
“Iran is a nuclear country and has no reason to give up the technology. If there are to be any preconditions, we shall propose them,” he said during an interview published here Friday, IRNA reported.
Suspension of uranium enrichment programme was an issue in the past as “we have passed this stage,” Ahmadinejad told Kyodo news agency and added that “this (enrichment activity) is a non-negotiable subject”.
The UN Security Council last month tightened UN sanctions on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme as six major powers offered to resume talks with the Islamic country.
The five permanent UN Security Council powers reconfirmed and pledged to expand a 2006 offer of economic and trade incentives to Iran in exchange for a freeze of its uranium enrichment activities.
Asked about the possibility of resuming talks with the European Union over the issue, Ahmadinejad said his country would negotiate with the UN nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
“We will pursue our nuclear issue in the framework of the UN agency,” he said.
The diplomatic standoff between Iran and the West, which at times has threatened to take on a military nature, began almost six years ago over suspicions that Tehran was secretly developing atomic weapons.
Tehran has always maintained that it needs nuclear technology for electricity generation only. Two previous rounds of UN sanctions were imposed on Tehran in December 2006 and March 2007.