TEHERAN, August 2 (RIA Novosti, Nikolai Terekhov) - Iran has postponed the resumption of work at its Isfahan nuclear center, a spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council said Tuesday.
"IAEA Director General [Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei] asked to send experts for two days to monitor the removal of seals from equipment and we met this request," Ali Aghamohammadi said.
But he said Iran could also wait for the European Big Three (Great Britain, France and Germany) to send draft proposals through August 7 and would not resume work at its nuclear facility until then.
Teheran notified the IAEA of its readiness to resume work at Isfahan, Iran's second largest city in the center of the country. But Iranian authorities did not resume work at the nuclear facility under pressure from the international community, which urged Iran to postpone the decision and warned it about the implications of the move.
Local observers say Iran will inevitably face a sharp negative response from the international community and the Big Three, if it actually removes seals from equipment and resumes nuclear work. The Big Three warned Teheran on many occasions that it could yield to U.S. pressure and initiate the procedure of transferring the Iranian nuclear file to the UN Security Council to decide upon anti-Iranian sanctions.
But Teheran says the activity of the center will not affect negotiations with the Big Three while the moratorium on uranium enrichment at Natanz, the other nuclear facility near Teheran, is in effect.
Western experts say Iranian authorities are using the language of threats and blackmail to put pressure on the European Union again to secure maximum concessions for the Iranian nuclear file and, in particular, for the development of a full nuclear cycle.
