Iran to withstand EU pressures in nuclear talks

Iran vowed on Tuesday to resistpressures from the European Union (EU) as the two sides kicked offa new round of nuclear negotiations in Vienna, the official IRNAnews agency reported.

"The next few days' negotiations are very decisive in Iran'snuclear dossier, and we will strongly stand against probablepressures from the EU," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefiwas quoted as saying.

"We hope this will not be the last round of negotiations andthey will continue, but this depends on how the Europeans behave,"Asefi said.

Asefi also expressed hope that the nuclear negotiations wouldcontinue to make progress.

"We have had some achievements so far and our nuclearnegotiations over the past few years have never been fruitless," he said.

The spokesman stressed that Tehran was not afraid of beingreferred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. "The rights and interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran standabove anything. The Iranian people regard access to nucleartechnology as their obvious right, and according to surveys carriedout among various walks of life, an absolute majority of theIranians approve of it," Asefi said.

Iran and the EU have held three rounds of talks on Tehran'sdisputed nuclear program since Iran froze uranium enrichmentactivities last November.

The EU insisted that Iran should provide "objective guarantees"about the claimed peaceful nature of the country's nuclearactivities.

Iran, which denied the US accusation of developing nuclearweapons, is under growing pressure from the EU and the US to giveup ambitious nuclear program or being referred to the UN SecurityCouncil.

Source: Xinhua