Iran will enrich uranium on its own

Spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali Shirzadian said Tehran will continue its activities to produce 5 percent enriched uranium and will for sure start work on 20 percent enriched uranium production if the talks are fruitless, Xinhua reported.

If the upcoming talks lack the desired results for Iran, Tehran will correspond with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to announce its decision to start activities to provide the needed fuel by itself, he said.

Officials from Iran, France, Russia, the United States and the IAEA will meet in Vienna later on Monday to discuss how to provide the 20 percent enriched uranium needed for a research reactor in the Iranian capital of Tehran.

Asked to comment on the reasons why Iran is not interested in carrying out 20 percent uranium enrichment itself to provide its needed fuel, Shirzadian said Iran only needs 150 to 300 kilograms of the fuel and it is not economically justified for Tehran to produce it by itself.

In addition, Iran's decision "was in fact a chance for Western countries to prove their sincerity," Shirzadian said.

He denied the claims that Iran's decision to buy the higher-level enriched uranium from foreign countries meant the transfer of all its atomic activities to outside Iran and that the decision showed Iran's willingness to stop uranium enrichment inside the country.

Iran was going to the talks on its fuel supply without consenting to any preconditions, Shirzadian said, stressing that Iran's plan to get its needed 20 percent enriched uranium from foreign countries was only due to the fact that its domestic production was not economical.

All countries in the world already knew that Iran has the enrichment technology so the proposal was never to be interpreted as a weakness for Iran, he added.