Iran's top diplomat to the United Nations nuclear watchdog meeting said on Monday in Vienna that Tehran would resume uranium enrichment despite the European Union's urge to halt it permanently, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"Uranium enrichment is Iran's legitimate right, just like the rights enjoyed by all other members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," Hossein Mousavian, spokesman of the Iranian delegation to the ongoing IAEA meeting, said at a press conference.

Mousavian, as other Iranian top officials did before, rationalized the resumption by accusing the European countries of failing to keep their commitments of promoting a closure of Iran's nuclear case in June.

"We had also earlier announced that since the European nations have not fulfilled the promises, we too, do not feel obliged tokeep performing our relative tasks," he said.

"We have done more than our obligations to build trust, having committed no illegal move at all in our peaceful nuclear activities," Mousavian added.

Mousavian also stressed Iran would make a public announcement on when the actual resumption of uranium enrichment will take place. "We will definitely announce that date openly later," he said.

"Today all our nuclear enrichment activities in Iran are conducted under strict IAEA supervision," he added.

The IAEA kicked off its governors' meeting in Vienna on Monday to discuss Iran's nuclear issue again.

On Sunday, France, Germany and Britain submitted a draft resolution to the meeting, urging Iran to halt all of the activities related to uranium enrichment and setting a November deadline for the Islamic Republic.

The United States, accusing Iran of secretly developing atomic weapons, is trying to prompt the IAEA to refer Iran's case to the United Nations Security Council.

Tehran has been consistently denying the US accusation, asserting that it is politically motivated and Iran's nuclear research is fully peaceful.

Source: Xinhua