Iran fully committed to nuke freeze

"We are fully committed to a suspension of enrichment and related activities," Hossein Mousavian told Reuters on the second day of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board meeting devoted to Iran and South Korea's nuclear violations.

Enrichment is a process of purifying uranium for use as fuel in power plants or, when very highly enriched, in weapons.

But the ink on the hard-won EU-Iran suspension accord -- which Tehran accepted to escape a report to the UN Security Council and possible economic sanctions -- was barely dry when Tehran threatened to wreck it with a demand to exempt some 20 enrichment centrifuges for research purposes.

Mousavian said the EU deal did not cover centrifuge research and development but Iran would not use the exemption to enrich uranium. "They (the EU) are concerned it would be used for enrichment ... Definitely we are not going to use it for enrichment."

Western diplomats in Vienna said the request to amend the terms of the freeze infuriated not only the European Union but also Washington, which despite Iranian denials has long accused Tehran of trying to build an atomic bomb.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters he hoped Tehran would rethink the idea once there was an agreement on the text of a draft IAEA resolution on Iran's nuclear programme.

Some Western diplomats said they thought Iran was using the requested exemption as a bargaining chip, and would drop it if the final resolution was soft enough on Tehran.