Sunday, January 13, 2008

Four-Week Deadline on Iran’s Nuclear Negotiations

IAEA announced today that it has agreed with Iran on a four-week deadline to clear up all remaining issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei held two days of talks in Tehran with Iranian officials, urging them to speed up their answers to the agency's questions about areas of doubt in the country’s nuclear projects.

ElBaradei is due to present his report on Iran to the IAEA Board of Governors in March. The report is expected to crucial to international community’s response to the nuclear standoff.

The key sticking point in the standoff is Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei today reiterated Iran’s position that it Iran will not suspend its enrichment activities.

“The Americans think wrongly that they can make the Islamic Republic of Iran submit by pressuring it on the nuclear issue," Khamenei told ElBaradei. “But they cannot make the Iranian nation submit by bringing up these issues and others.”

The US is not the only power that has called for suspension of uranium enrichment. The Europeans and more notably the Russians have also repeated the same demand in recent weeks.

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