Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today said 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 co-operation will be done within the UN nuclear watchdog's framework . . . nuclear co-operation with Iran is beneficial to the West," ISNA quoted Mr Ahmadinejad as saying.
US president Barack Obama said yesterday 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 UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, calls on Iran to send some 75 per cent of its low-enriched uranium 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.
Reuters