Monday November 16, 2009

Iran says nuclear rights non-negotiable - report

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday the country's nuclear rights were not negotiable, the student news agency ISNA reported.

"The Iranian nation's nuclear rights are not negotiable and our nuclear cooperation will be done within the U.N. nuclear watchdog's framework ... Nuclear cooperation with Iran is beneficial to the West," ISNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks to lawmakers in the Iranian parliament in Tehran November 15, 2009. (REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl)

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday time was running out for diplomacy in a dispute over Iran's nuclear programme, which the West fears is a cover to build bombs.

Iran says it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity.

A draft deal brokered by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), calls on Iran to send some 75 percent of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia and France to be turned into fuel for a Tehran medical research reactor.

Tehran says it prefers to buy reactor fuel from foreign suppliers rather than part with its low enriched uranium, that can be used for bombs if enriched further.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi)

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