TEHRAN, Sept 13 (AFP) - Iran cannot keep its uranium enrichment programme suspended indefinitely, the head of the Islamic republic's delegation to a meeting of the UN's nuclear watchdog said Monday.
"We can't imagine that the suspension will last very long," Hossein Mousavian was quoted as saying by the student news agency ISNA, reasserting the Islamic republic's right to enrich.
Last October, Iran promised to suspend all uranium enrichment activities, including making or buying the centrifuges that refine uranium into what can be fuel for reactors or material for atomic bombs.
Iran "can continue (the suspension) for a brief period in order to build confidence", Mousavian continued.
Mousavian is attending a meeting in Vienna of the International Atomic Energy Agency at which a deadline is being discussed for Iran to allay suspicions it is secretly making atomic weapons.
The United States says Iran has such a programme, in defiance of the international community, and should be taken before the UN Security Council for enforcement action.
But Tehran insists that it will pursue a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
"Even if, under pressure from the United States, the Iranian nuclear dossier is sent to the UN Security Council, we will use diplomacy to reassure other countries of the peaceful nature of our nuclear activities," said Mahmud Mohammadi, vice president of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee.
He nevertheless said that a complete suspsension of enrichment activities was "against the law and the IAEA's rules".
"We will not accept an undertaking that goes against our national interests," Mohammadi was quoted as saying by ISNA.
Britain, France and Germany are ready to set a November deadline for Iran to respond to concern about its nuclear programme, in a draft resolution that brings the so-called Euro 3 closer to the US hard line, diplomats told AFP.
But Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful and that it has answered all the IAEA's questions.
It sees a November deadline as a chance for Iran to be released from the now 19-month-old IAEA investigation.
The Euro 3 had previously resisted setting any time limit on their policy of constructive engagement to get Iran to cooperate in the investigation.
But Iran has since backtracked on some promises made, such as to suspend manufacturing the centrifuges that do the enrichment.