A top Iranian nuclear negotiator said late Monday that Tehran's decision to resume uranium conversion activities was a collective decision.

"Iran's decision to resume nuclear activities at the Isfahan uranium conversion facility is a national decision adopted by the system's top officials in the presence of Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei," Ali Aghamohammadi, spokesman of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said in an interview with the official IRNA news agency.

"The officials present at that sensitive decision-making session included President Mohammad Khatami, President-Elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Chairman of the Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former prime minister and Expediency Council member Mir-Hossein Moussavi," he said.

"The heads of the system unanimously declared at that meeting that Aug. 1 would be Iran's unchangeable deadline, deciding that the current trend of nuclear talks is against the country's national interests," Aghamohammadi added.

Aghamohammadi announced earlier Monday that Iran would remove the seals on a uranium conversion site in the central city of Isfahan under full supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency experts on Monday evening.

Iran took the step towards resuming uranium conversion activities after the EU failed to present its promised proposal to solve the Iranian nuclear issue before 17:00 local time (12:30 GMT) on Monday, a deadline set by Tehran.

He also said that Ahmadinejad would never change Iran's nuclear policy after he was sworn in on Wednesday.

"This issue is independent from the change of governments. It is the Iranian nation's decision," he said.

"Macro-scale decisions of the system would be made by the country's top officials, just as always, and they would not be subject to drastic changes with coming to power of a new president," Aghamohammadi stressed.

The United States has accused Iran of developing nuclear weapons secretly, a charge rejected by Tehran as politically motivated.

Iran suspended all uranium enrichment related activities in November 2004 to pave the way for talks with the EU on the future of its controversial nuclear program.

The EU has been persuading Iran to permanently halt uranium enrichment in return for political and economic incentives, but Iran insists that it will never give up its legal right to peaceful nuclear activities.

Source: Xinhua