Former nuclear negotiator held in Tehran

Tehran: Iranian authorities arrested a former nuclear negotiator "for security reasons", the official Irna news agency said yesterday.

Hossein Mousavian, considered a moderate conservative by analysts, was a member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team with the European Union and head of the foreign policy committee on the Supreme National Security Council.

Like most other members of the team, he was replaced by more hardline officials when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005.

"Mousavian has been arrested for security reasons," Irna quoted an "unofficial source" as saying. "Mousavian was arrested on Monday in his house in Tehran."

Meanwhile, Iran underlined its determination to press ahead with sensitive nuclear work despite Western opposition yesterday when a senior official said it was capable of mass-producing machines used for enriching uranium.

Ahead of a meeting of the United States and five other big powers over the issue in London, US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Tehran was facing growing isolation in the world and called for a dip-lomatic solution.

But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran would not retreat "one iota" from what it sees as its right to develop a civilian nuclear energy industry.