Iran's lead negotiator Saeed Jalili said that the Iranian team of negotiators have underlined in their several rounds of talks with the six world powers in Baghdad on Wednesday and Thursday that acquisition and possession of the nuclear fuel production cycle is an inalienable right of the Iranian nation, FNA reported.
"We emphasized that using nuclear energy, specially uranium enrichment and owning a fuel production cycle is our people's inalienable right," Jalili said at a joint press conference with EU foreign policy chief Catherin Ashton, who heads the delegations of the six world powers in negotiations with Tehran, and after two days of negotiations in Baghdad.
Elaborating on the contents of his several rounds of talks with the delegations of the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) in Baghdad on Wednesday and Thursday, he said the talks in Baghdad were rather lengthy, but remained unfinished.
According to the Iranian official, familiarity with each other's views was the main result of the two days of talks in Baghdad.
"We announced that we are ready to continue the talks here and stay in Baghdad tomorrow" for the same end," he added.
Jalili further stressed the necessity for the strengthening of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as the legal and international bases for nuclear activity and cooperation.
"But there should be a balance between the undertakings and the rights of the (IAEA and NPT) member states," he added.
"Uranium enrichment is among the inalienable rights of all NPT member states and Iran insists on using this right," Jalili reiterated.
He also noted Iran's uranium enrichment to the purity level of 20 percent, which was said by the western media to be a main focus of the talks between the two sides in Iraq, and said, "Two years ago we offered the IAEA to sell us the 20-percent enriched fuel, but they refrained and we acquired and produced it through the efforts made by our own young Iranian scientists."
According to the Iranian top negotiator, Bahrain and its people's right to vote and determine their own fate was another axis of talks between Iran and the world powers in Baghdad.
Jalili further lashed out at the dual-track policy adopted by the US-led West against Iran, and cautioned, "These talks can succeed only when they are not accompanied by destructive moves."
The Iranian top negotiator implicitly rejected parts of Ashton's remarks at the press conference earlier, saying, "We do recommend again that if they want the talks to succeed, they should move on the path of cooperation."
"The strategy of pressure has come to the end of the road," he reiterated.
Jalili also pointed to a recent religious decree issued by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei against the acquisition, production and use of the nuclear weapons, and said the Fatwa "has created a major capacity for disarmament".
Iran and the G5+1 held several rounds of talks between the two sides in Baghdad on Wednesday and Thursday.
On April 14 and after a 15-month hiatus, Iran and the six world powers resumed talks in Istanbul, Turkey, and agreed to meet again in the Iraqi capital on May 23.
The two sides are due to continue their negotiations in the Russian capital, Moscow, in June on June 18 and 19.
Analysts believe that the two sides' agreement to continue the talks should be seen as a sign of hope for resolving the long-standing standoff between Tehran and the West.
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