N-Talks With EU Making Progress: Iran Official 

Agencies, Arab News

GENEVA/TEHRAN, 21 April 2005 — Iran-EU nuclear talks are making progress, a senior Iranian official said yesterday, adding that the Islamic Republic still refuses to give up on uranium enrichment. “There is a chance we might be inching forward toward a potential agreement,” Iranian delegation chief Cyrus Nasseri told AFP.

His comments came after two days of talks in Geneva and a warning from Tehran that the negotiations could collapse in the face of European Union demands that the Islamic Republic abandon nuclear fuel work in order to guarantee it will not make atomic weapons.

Iran expects the Europeans to accept its proposal to allow uranium enrichment, despite Western demands that it cease all such nuclear fuel work, Tehran’s top nuclear official Hassan Rohani said in an interview published in London’s Financial Times yesterday. “The Europeans should tell us whether these ideas can work as the basis for continued negotiations or not,” Rohani said. “If yes fine. If not, then the negotiations cannot continue,” he said.

Nasseri said: “The mere fact that we are continuing (to talk) should be an indication that there seems to be hope.”

Rohani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told reporters some progress had been made in talks with Britain, France and Germany, who want Iran to give up uranium enrichment in return for incentives such as trade deals. “The talks can continue if we see any progress. If not, we will end it,” he said.

Meanwhile, around 400 Iranian men and women met in Tehran yesterday to declare their readiness to carry out suicide operations against Israel. Some 250 men and 150 women, all members of Islamist militias, responded to an appeal by two nongovernmental organizations urging them to support Palestinian suicide bombers and declare their own readiness to become “martyrs”.

Grouped together in a hall in the center of Tehran, women in chadors and men wearing headbands with the inscription Such actions are “permitted and considered relevant in the holy war for the good of Allah when the difference between the military forces of the army of Islam and those of the enemy is too great and there is no other classical means to hurt the enemy at strategic points,” according to the decree from Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nuri Hamedani

“I am ready to take up arms, travel to Palestine and fight against the Zionists,” said Mansoureh Sadeghi, 31, a student. “People die in any case so why not die for one’s ideals?” The Islamic republic has always made clear its refusal to recognize Israel and its support of the Palestinian cause. However, it denies providing anything other than political support to militant Palestinian groups.