Iran has presented its response on a United Nations-drafted nuclear fuel deal to the head of the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, Iran's state al Alam television reported on Thursday.
Iran will seek major revisions to the proposed deal, including shipping abroad its low-enriched uranium (LEU) in stages rather than all at once, according to another pro-government newspaper.
Without giving a source, the newspaper Javan also said Iran wanted a "simultaneous exchange", receiving higher-enriched uranium to run a Tehran research reactor at the same time as it ships LEU abroad for conversion into fuel for the same purpose.
Israel on Thursday blasted the uranium exchange deal with Iran as one that would only delay by one year Tehran's alleged progress toward a nuclear weapon.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the downside of the agreement was
that it granted international recognition to uranium enrichment by
Iran.
He urged the international community to go further and demand a complete stop to enrichment on Iranian soil.
"If this agreement is implemented, it will take them back a year, but there is a fly in the ointment. It means that they [the U.S., Russia and France] recognize that Iran is enriching uranium and that helps them [Iran] with their argument that they are enriching uranium for peaceful purposes," Barak said.
"It is important to insist on an end to enrichment in Iran," he told Israel Radio.
Iran wants two amendments to nuclear draft
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said earlier Thursday that Iran would not retreat "one iota" on its nuclear rights, but it is ready to cooperate on issues regarding atomic fuel, power plants and nuclear technology.
He said the provision of nuclear fuel for a Tehran research reactor was an opportunity for Iran to evaluate the "honesty" of world powers and the United Nations nuclear agency.
"We welcome the uranium exchange deal and are ready for cooperation, but the countries involved in the deal should also fulfil their commitments," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Mashad in north-eastern Iran that was broadcast on television.
According to Iranian media, Tehran has accepted the framework of the deal, but has demanded changes to it.
Two such reported changes to the deal, according to the media sources, included the gradual shipment of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad rather than sending it in one go, a pro-government newspaper reported on Thursday.
It also said Tehran wanted a "simultaneous exchange," under which it would receive fuel for a Tehran research reactor at the same time as it ships LEU out of the country, Javan newspaper reported, without giving a source.
Ahmadinejad on Thursday also called on the United States to drop its support for Israel to prove its claim of wanting change.
"You have to choose between your prestige in the world or support for the Zionist regime - Israel," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in
Mashad in north-eastern Iran that was broadcast on television. "You
have to chose one of the two options."
IAEA return from visit to enrichment site
Earlier Thursday a team of UN nuclear inspectors returned from a visit to a previously secret Iranian uranium enrichment site, with their leader expressing satisfaction with the mission.
What the inspectors saw - and how freely they were allowed to work - will be key in deciding whether six world powers engaging Iran in efforts to reduce fears that it seeks to make nuclear weapons seek a new round of talks with Tehran.
The Fordo site is near the holy city of Qom. Iran revealed it was building it September 21 in a confidential letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Just days later, the leaders of the U.S., Britain and France condemned Tehran for having kept it secret.
The West believes Iran revealed the site's existence only because it had learned that the U.S. and its allies were about to make it public. Iran denies that.
Tehran says it wants to enrich only to make nuclear fuel. But the West worries that Iran wants to create fissile warhead material.
"We had a good trip," said Herman Nackaerts, who headed the International Atomic Energy Agency inspection team.
Nackaerts said the nuclear agency planned to analyze the data from the visit, adding that IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei would then report in due time on the results.
The team's findings will be presented as part of a report to the IAEA's 35-nation governing board. Beyond that, ElBaradei is expected to brief the six countries - the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - attempting to persuade Iran to freeze enrichment.
The visit was the first independent look inside the enrichment plant, a former ammunition dump burrowed into the treeless hills south of Tehran. The inspectors were expected to have studied plant blueprints, interviewed workers and taken soil samples before wrapping up the mission.
Iran's other enrichment plant - a sprawling underground facility at Natanz - is already under IAEA monitoring. But its general refusal to heed UN Security Council demands and freeze enrichment has resulted in three sets of Council sanctions.
While the Islamic Republic insists it is enriching only to create fuel for a future nuclear reactor network, the international community is concerned because the material could be further enriched to weapons-grade uranium, used to arm nuclear warheads.
Along with the IAEA briefing on Fordo, the six powers are also awaiting another development later in the day or Friday that will go into determining whether they follow up on talks with Tehran early this month. By Friday, the Islamic Republic has promised to reveal whether it accepts a plan that would have it ship out 70 percent of its enriched uranium to Russia for further enrichment.
The West said that Iran agreed in principle to do so at the Oct. 1 talks in Geneva, tentatively accepting a proposal that would see Russia enrich the exported material further for use in Tehran's research reactor.
The plan would commit Iran to turn over more than 2,600 pounds (1,200 kilograms) of low-enriched uranium - more than the commonly accepted amount of low-enriched uranium needed to produce weapons-grade uranium.
Sending such a large amount out would thus temporarily get rid of most of the material Tehran would need to make a bomb.
But if Tehran did accept the plan in Geneva, it has subsequently backtracked.
Ahead of announcing its formal decision it has indicated that may insist that it be allowed either to buy the fuel for the Tehran reactor from abroad - or to ship the material in small batches. That would not reduce fears about further enrichment to weapons-grade uranium because Iran would be able to quickly replace small amounts it sent out of the country with newly enriched material.
haaretz
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