Teheran will "never give up its right to nuclear energy"

       Iran will never abandon its "legal and obvious" right to nuclear technology and will not halt uranium enrichment, its foreign minister said,despite talks the West hopes will lead to restraints on the disputed programme.
       "The meetings with world powers and their behaviour shows that Iran's right to have peaceful nuclear technology has been accepted by them ... Iran will never abandon its legal and obvious right,"Manouchehr Mottaki said yesterday.
       Talks between Iran and three world powers on a uranium supply deal to address concerns about Teheran's enrichment programme began on Monday in Vienna but their scheduled resumption yesterday was delayed by two hours.
       It was not clear whether the delay was related to Mr Mottaki's remarks, in which he also said Iran did not need France to be part of the tentative deal,whose politically sensitive details remain to be ironed out.
       French, US and Russian delegations were conferring behind closed doors outside the meeting hall.
       The meeting, hosted by the Inter-national Atomic Energy Agency, offered the first chance to build on proposals raised earlier this month to defuse a standoff over suspicions that Iran's uranium enrichment programme is a cover for developing nuclear weapons.
       Mr Mottaki praised the talks, which Western diplomats said were based on an Iranian agreement in principle to send uranium to Russia and France for processing into fuel for a Teheran reactor producing medical isotopes.
       "We see serious development in the talks ... the continuation of talks can lead to a deal over supplying Iran with the 20% enriched uranium," Mr Mottaki told a news conference in Teheran.
       "What we want is our right based on the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It says the member countries should be supplied with nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes by those members that have the fuel."
       The West hopes the step of farming out a large amount of Iran's low-enriched uranium reserve for conversion as fuel for the medical isotope reactor will minimise the risk of Iran refining the material to levels suitable for bombs.