Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 28 / Trend D.Khatinoglu. S.Isayev/
The Iranian Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency Ali Asghar Soltanieh told Trend during an interview on Tuesday that Iran will never halt the uranium enrichment programme and the United States and the European Union should face the reality of a nuclear Iran.
Western countries alongside the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) doubt Iran's nuclear goals, accusing it of a probable military dimension of its nuclear programme.
So far, the UN Security Council has imposed four rounds of resolutions on Iran, asking it to halt its uranium enrichment programme and accept the additional protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
IAEA issued its latest report on Iran's nuclear programme on Feb.26 claiming that the country has stepped up uranium enrichment.
Iran's 3.5 per cent-enriched uranium reserves reached 95.4 kg, while its 19.75 per cent-enriched uranium reserves increased up to 5441 kg, Mr Soltanieh said.
He went on to say that Iran will never abandon its uranium enrichment, especially after seeing the hostile approach of Western countries with resolutions and boycotts on Iran.
"This kind of approach has neither any justification legally or technically. According to the NPT, nobody can ask Iran to halt enrichment of uranium and namely all of the Agency members have uranium enrichment rights under the IAEA's supervision," he added.
Enriching uranium increases the proportion of uranium atoms that can be split by fission. When uranium is produced, it consists of about 99.3 per cent uranium-238 and 0.7 per cent uranium-235. As uranium gets enriched, the density of isotope 235 raises. For making nuclear warhead uranium should be enriched above 90 per cent.
Mr Soltanieh said that all of Iran's nuclear activities, even the amount of enriched uranium gram-to-gram are under IAEA supervision.
"Mr Amano confessed in his recent report that all of Iran's uranium facilities, including Natanz and Fordo had been visited several times and there are no questions about them," the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA urged.
Mr Soltanieh added that Amano's concerns are based on 'alleged studies' around the issues that never had relations with Iran's nuclear programme such as military sites. "However, we are ready to talk about those alleged studies and cooperate more with the IAEA," Mr Soltaniyeh added.