Iran will press ahead with its uranium enrichment programme, its nuclear energy chief said on 27 June, suggesting there will be no change of course despite the election on 14 June of a relative moderate as president. Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of the Islamic Republic’s Atomic Energy Organization, said production of nuclear fuel would “continue in line with our declared goals. The enrichment linked to fuel production will also not change.” Speaking through an interpreter to reporters at a nuclear energy conference in St Petersburg, Russia, he said work at Iran’s underground Fordow facility, which the West wants Iran to close, would also continue.
Iran says it is enriching uranium to fuel a planned network of nuclear energy power plants. Hopes for a resolution to the nuclear dispute were boosted this month with the election of President Hassan Rowhani, who has promised a less confrontational approach to Iran’s foreign relations than predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.