Iran parliament urges government to pursue uranium enrichment

Iran's parliament on Sunday approved a bill urging the government to continue pursuing 20-per-cent uranium enrichment in the Natanz nuclear plant, state television reported.

	An unidentified Iranian cleric lawmaker makes his way through the parliament in an open session, in Tehran, May 2010.
	Photo by: AP

The resolution calls for resisting what the parliament called plots by the United States and Britain against Iran's rights to pursue peaceful nuclear technology.

The measure was regarded as a symbolic political gesture, because nuclear decisions are made by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei through the National Security Council, not the parliament.

Iran began the enrichment process in February, without any input from the legislature.

A deal to exchange low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel from Russia and France failed, and Iran started enriching its own fuel at the Natanz plant in the central part of the country.

Tehran claimed to have already produced 20 kilograms of uranium enriched to the 20-per-cent level.

The government also claimed it would be able to produce fuel rods for the Tehran medical reactor by March 2011, and then begin construction of a new reactor to replace it.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has noted that Iran only began the process because the fuel swap was not realized, and said he would prefer fuel from foreign sources because enrichment is costly.

Ahmadinejad also said Tehran would be ready to resume nuclear talks with the world powers in late August, after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Iran insists on its right to pursue peaceful nuclear development as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and member of the International Atomic Energy Agency. It rejects Western charges that it has been working on a secret weapons program.

But its lack of transparency and refusal to suspend the uranium enrichment have led to four UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on the Islamic state.