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TEHRAN, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- Iran's chief nuclear negotiator
Ali Larijani said on Monday that Tehran has informed the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) of its decision to resume full-scale uranium
enrichment.
Iran has informed the IAEA of the date of the resumption
and the agency's inspectors are expected to come to Iran in the coming days to
supervise the move, Larijani was quoted by the semi-official students' news
agency ISNA as saying.
Larijani made the statement one day after Iran announced
that it had ended all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA, including snap U.N.
inspection of its nuclear sites required by the additional protocol of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and suspension of uranium enrichment.
Iran's move came after an emergency meeting of the IAEA
board of governors adopted a resolution in Vienna on Saturday to report Iran's
nuclear issue to the UN Security Council.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad late Saturday
ordered Iran's Atomic Energy Organization to stop implementation of the
additional protocol and other voluntary measures as of Sunday.
However, Iran stressed that the suspension of voluntary
measures does not mean an end to nuclear negotiations or other legal
obligations.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said on Sunday
that Iran was still willing to solve nuclear dispute through negotiations and
continue cooperation with the IAEA under the NPT and the Safeguard
Agreement.
Iranian government signed the additional protocol to the
NPT in December 2003 to allow snap inspection of its nuclear sites by the IAEA,
but the protocol was never ratified by Iran's parliament.
Moreover, Iran suspended uranium enrichment related
activities in November 2004 as voluntary confidence-building measures to pave
the way for negotiations with the European Union trio of Britain, France and
Germany.
However, Iran restarted uranium conversion, a precursor to
the enrichment, in August 2005, prompting the EU trio to break off nuclear talks
with Tehran.
Iran's resumption of nuclear fuel research on Jan. 10 led
to its nuclear case being reported to the U.N. Security Council which would
withhold action until March.
Iran has rejected the charge of seeking nuclear weapons
but insisted on its right to peaceful nuclear technology.
Iran said on Sunday that it would continue negotiation
with Russia on Moscow's proposal to move Iran's uranium enrichment to Russia so
as to ease Western suspicion over Iran's nuclear ambition.
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