Iran wants to continue talks with the European Union on Tehran's nuclear program if there was a good chance of resolving the standoff, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said yesterday.
"We will continue negotiations with the European side provided it will lead us somewhere tangible in a matter of time," he said after a meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
In a deal reached with Britain, Germany and France in November, Tehran agreed to suspend all nuclear fuel-related activities while both sides tried to negotiate a long-term solution on Iran's atomic ambitions.
But Iran, unhappy with the slow pace of talks with the European Union, said it would resume some work related to enrichment, a process of purifying uranium to use in nuclear power plants or atomic weapons.
Mr Kharrazi's comments on the sidelines of a UN-sponsored conference on nuclear disarmament appeared to be an attempt to console the EU's three biggest powers, who are worried that talks with the Iranians are on the verge of collapse.
But he said Iran is "determined to continue with our nuclear program, which is only for producing fuel for power plants."
Sharing Washington's suspicion that Iran is developing atomic weapons, the EU has offered economic and political incentives if Tehran scraps its enrichment program. But Iran, which says its program is peaceful, refuses to give it up.
Before the meeting with Mr Annan, Mr Kharrazi said the issue of whether or not Tehran would resume some enrichment-related work was still being decided.
If Tehran followed through on that threat, European diplomats close to the talks said they would have no choice but to back US calls to refer Iran's case to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
Instead of scrapping enrichment, Iran proposed building up its enrichment program in stages, starting with a small-scale enrichment plant with 3,000 centrifuges, machines that purify uranium fuel by spinning at supersonic speeds.
Under close UN supervision, Iran would gradually develop a facility with 54,000 centrifuges that would be capable of producing fuel for dozens of bombs a year.
But the Europeans do not like this idea.
A diplomat close to the UN nuclear watchdog said before Mr Kharrazi spoke that Iran was unlikely to resume any enrichment activities before the June 17 presidential elections.
The diplomat added that Iran would want a few more positive progress reports from International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei before resuming any parts of its enrichment program.
ElBaradei will report on Iran's nuclear programme at the IAEA board of governors meetings in June and September.
The IAEA has been investigating Tehran's nuclear programme for more than two years. Although it has found no evidence of a weapons programme, it has uncovered many concealed activities that could be linked to atomic bomb-making.