Rouhani: Little progress made in Western effort to curb enrichment

TEHRAN, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Monday the Western effort to curb progress in his country's nuclear sector had little impact.

"You see that those powers, which were thinking of destroying Iran's enrichment capability, have now admitted that they cannot stop Iran's industrial progress and enrichment due to the indigenization of this industry and its expansion," he was quoted by the semiofficial Fars News Agency as saying.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Tehran last weekend to tour Iran's Arak nuclear facility. Last month, Iran and the IAEA agreed to cooperate more closely in order to allay international concerns over Iran's nuclear program.

"Iran's policy of constructive interaction with the world states has forced the world to see the realities of Iran's capabilities," the Iranian president said.

Iran agreed to lower the purity to which it enriches uranium as part of a deal reached in November with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, and France -- plus Germany. Iran gets some relief from economic sanctions in exchange.

Iran is suspected of pursuing the technology needed to manufacture a nuclear weapon, an allegation it denies.

Fars reported Monday a delegation from the Iranian Foreign Ministry arrived in Vienna for another round of talks with the so-called p5-plus-1.