31.10 Iran Says It Wont Stop Enriching Uranium to 20%
MOSCOW, October 31 (RIA Novosti) Irans foreign minister said Thursday that Tehran would continue enriching uranium to 20 percent purity to power a nuclear reactor, denying a senior lawmakers earlier claims of a temporarily halt, Iranian news network Press TV reported.
Last week, Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, deputy head of the Iranian parliaments security committee, said the Tehran reactor has its required fuel at the moment, and there is no need for further production.
Reacting to the statement, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a press conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, that the 20 percent enrichment would continue in order to power the reactor.
The minister emphasized that the enrichment would be performed under the supervision of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
He said Tehran would push ahead with nuclear talks with world powers with good faith and with determination to reach understanding and with hope to reach an understanding at an early stage.
Iran on Thursday finished two days of expert-level talks about its nuclear program with six major world powers in the Austrian capital, Vienna. The talks began a day after negotiations between Iran and the IAEA, which both sides described as productive.
