Tehran has repeatedly said it will not give up its missile programme or its uranium enrichment
\n Washington
\nIran has to \u2018walk away\u2019 from uranium enrichment and long-range missile development and it should allow American inspectors of its facilities, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday as a round of nuclear talks was postponed.
\nRubio\u2019s comments underscore the major remaining divisions in talks between the countries to resolve the long-running dispute over Iran\u2019s nuclear programme, with US President Donald Trump threatening to bomb Iran if there is no agreement.
\n\u201cThey have to walk away from sponsoring terrorists, they have to walk away from helping the Houthis (in Yemen), they have to walk away from building long-range missiles that have no purpose to exist other than having nuclear weapons, and they have to walk away from enrichment,\u201d Rubio said in a Fox News interview.
\nIran has repeatedly said it will not give up its missile programme or its uranium enrichment\u2013a process used to make fuel for nuclear power plants but which can also yield material for an atomic warhead.
\nOn Thursday a senior Iranian official told Reuters that the scheduled fourth round of talks due to take place in Rome on Saturday had been postponed and that a new date would be set \u201cdepending on the US approach\u201d.
\nRubio said Iran should import enriched uranium for its nuclear power programme rather than enriching it to any level.
\n\u201cIf you have the ability to enrich at 3.67% it only takes a few weeks to get to 20% then 60% and then the 80 and 90% that you need for a weapon,\u201d he said.
\nIran has said it has a right to enrich uranium under the terms of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It denies wanting to build a nuclear bomb.
\nRubio also said Iran would have to accept that Americans could be involved in any inspection regime and that inspectors would require access to all facilities, including military ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tehran has repeatedly said it will not give up its missile programme or its uranium enrichment Washington Iran has to \u2018walk away\u2019 from uranium enrichment and long-range missile development and it should allow American inspectors of its facilities, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday as a round of nuclear talks was postponed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476107,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-476092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n