Iranian parliament dismisses AP's quote of Larijani

The Public Relations of the Iranian parliament rejected parts of an AP report quoting Speaker Ali Larijani as saying that Iran enjoys excessive enriched uranium and will use it as a bargaining chip in the upcoming talks with the world powers. Associated Press quoted Larijani as saying in an interview that Iran has more enriched uranium than it needs and plans to use that as a bargaining chip in the upcoming nuclear talks in Geneva next week. According to the parliament's Media Department, Majlis Public Relations said in a statement "those parts of the interview in which it has been asserted Iran has more enriched uranium than what its needs and wants to use it in Geneva Talks as a bargaining chip is incorrect and completely baseless". Iran and the world powers held a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York in September and are due to meet again in Geneva on October 15-16. On April 6, Iran and the six world powers wrapped up two days of intensive negotiations in Almaty. Washington and its western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and the western embargos for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path. Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.