Iran will pursue its nuclear drive in a "normal fashion" and will produce itself the fuel necessary for its Tehran medical reactor, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Monday.
Iran will pursue its nuclear drive in a "normal fashion" and will produce itself the fuel necessary for its Tehran medical reactor, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Monday.

"Nuclear activity will continue in a normal fashion," Mottaki told a news conference as he wrapped up a brief visit to Lebanon . "Concerning the fuel needed for the Tehran reactor... Iran will produce it itself."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told AFP Friday that Iran was ready to strike a uranium enrichment deal if the U.S. and the West respect the Islamic Republic and stop making threats.

Iran is under three sets of U.N. sanctions for refusing to suspend enrichment and risks a further round after rejecting a U.N.-brokered deal to send its low-enriched uranium abroad to be further refined into fuel for the reactor.

Enrichment lies at the heart of fears over Iran 's atomic work as the process to make nuclear fuel can also be used to make the fissile core of an atom bomb in much higher purifications. Iran insists its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes and rejects Western suspicions it is covertly trying to develop a bomb.

Earlier this month the U.S. dismissed an offer by Iran to swap on the Iranian island of Kish 400 kilograms of low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel enriched to 20%, in what would be the first phase of a deal with world powers.

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