A member of the nuclear negotiating team said no one can force Iran to accept a "compulsory suspension" of its nuclear activities.
"Iran voluntarily accepted suspension and the Additional Protocol in the past and halted the implementation of the Additional Protocol after Iran's nuclear dossier was referred to the Security Council," IRNA quoted Davoud Mohammadnia as saying in a gathering of students in the western city of Hamadan on late Saturday.
Iran has suggested that it is ready to consider accepting an Additional Protocol to its safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as part of a comprehensive long-term settlement to the 12-year dispute over its nuclear program. The negotiators have said the final decision on the Additional Protocol lies with parliament.
The Additional Protocol is a legal document granting the IAEA complementary inspection authority to that provided in underlying safeguards agreements. A principal aim is to enable the IAEA inspectorate to provide assurance about both declared and possible undeclared nuclear activities of a member state. Under the protocol, the IAEA is granted expanded rights of access to information and sites.
Tehran voluntarily signed the Additional Protocol in December 2003 and remained committed to it for over two years, but suspended its implementation after the UN Security Council imposed nuclear-related sanctions on Iran.
Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) missed a self-imposed November 24 target date for a final nuclear accord and agreed to extend their talks for seven more months until the end of next June.
Mohammadnia, who is an advisor to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, also said the UN Security Council's resolutions against Iran have been politically motivated and are not founded on a solid legal basis.
"The purpose of them has been to promote Iranophobia and hostilities toward Iran to achieve their illegitimate objectives."
In addition, he said P5+1 members are of the belief that Iran has come to the negotiating table due to sanctions, but the sanctions resolutions have failed to achieve their aims, including brining Iran's oil imports to a complete halt.
****Framework for Talks
Elsewhere, he said a comprehensive framework has been delineated for the nuclear negotiators, under which the country's nuclear achievements must be preserved and the attempts by some parties to turn the dispute over Tehran's nuclear work into a security issue must be thwarted.
The framework requires the negotiators to take measures to "manage the crisis, retain a specified level of enrichment, secure an effective lifting of sanctions, prevent expansion of sanctions, take Iran's dossier off (the agenda of) the Security Council, normalize the file at the board of governors (of the UN nuclear agency) and secure the removal of all restrictions on the country's nuclear activities."
