Iran Delays Uranium Deal Decision, Says Envoy
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran put off until next week a formal response to a U.N.-backed plan to ship much of its uranium to Russia for enrichment, the country's nuclear envoy said Friday. The West sees the proposal as a way to curb Tehran's alleged efforts to make nuclear weapons.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tehran is still studying the proposal and would inform the U.N. nuclear watchdog "next week about our evaluation."
"We are working and elaborating on all the details of this proposal," Soltanieh told state Press TV.
The plan was put forth Wednesday after three days of talks between Iran and world powers in Vienna. The United States, Russia and France endorsed the deal Friday, when an official response from Tehran had been expected.
Iran's acquiescence would be a boost to Obama administration efforts to curtail Tehran's nuclear program and ease Western fears about its potential to make nuclear weapons.
The State Department expressed mild disappointment that Iran withheld a decision and said it was unhappy Iran was not ready to embrace the proposal.
The plan is attractive to the U.S. because it would consume a large amount of Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium, thereby limiting the potential for Tehran to secretly convert it into uranium suitable for a nuclear weapon. Iran denies it has any intention of making a weapon, saying its nuclear program is for generating power.
State Department spokesman Ian C. Kelly said the U.S. still hopes Iran will go along with the IAEA option. "This is a real opportunity for Iran to help address some of the real concerns of the international community about its nuclear program and at the same time still provide for the humanitarian needs of the Iranian people," Kelly said. "We hope that they will next week provide a positive response."
Alireza Nader of the RAND Corp. said if Iran rejects the deal, it would "lead to increased tensions" and a possible new set of U.N. sanctions. Nader said the U.N. proposal is "problematic for Iran's hard-line factions."
"Accepting it would indicate a compromise with world powers, and Tehran has repeatedly said it would not compromise," Nader said.
Soltanieh's statement came on the eve of a visit by U.N. nuclear experts to Iran to inspect a recently disclosed uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. The visit, which kicks off late Saturday, is an indication that Tehran is making good on some of its promises to the West.
The IAEA said Friday that Iran told agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei it is "considering the (U.N.) proposal in depth and in a favorable light, but needs time until the middle of next week to provide a response."
Just hours earlier, Iranian state TV quoted an unidentified official close to the Iranian nuclear negotiating team as saying that Tehran wants to buy nuclear fuel it needs for a research reactor, rather than accept the U.N. plan.
The TV quoted the official as saying Tehran was waiting for a response from world powers to its own proposal to buy the 20 percent-enriched uranium it needs for its Tehran reactor that produces medical isotopes. The U.S.-built reactor has been producing medical isotopes for more than three decades.
While the TV report was not an outright rejection of the U.N. proposal, it raised concerns since Iran has often used counterproposals as a way to draw out nuclear talks with the West. On Thursday, deputy speaker of the parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar dismissed the U.N. plan.
David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector, now with the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said the Iranian proposal to buy nuclear fuel is a nonstarter because U.N. sanctions stand in the way of anyone willing to sell Tehran enriched uranium.
"The IAEA plan was pretty clear, it was goodwill test by the Obama administration to see if Iran is serious about being prepared to negotiate," Albright told The Associated Press. "Iran would put itself in a bad position if it rejects a very reasonable offer made in good faith."
At the U.N., Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said he told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday that Iran is trying to buy all the items it needs to become a nuclear power. Shalom did not disclose any details.
The Vienna talks followed a similar meeting Oct. 1 in Geneva that included the highest-level bilateral contact between the U.S. and Iran in years. At the time, the revelation that Iran has been building a nuclear plant for uranium enrichment near Qom had heightened international concerns.
Iran is enriching uranium to a 3.5 percent level for a nuclear power plant it is planning to build in southwestern Iran. Iranian officials have said it is more economical to purchase the more highly enriched uranium needed for the Tehran reactor than produce it domestically.
The Vienna-brokered plan would have required Iran to send 2,420 pounds (1,100 kilograms) of low-enriched uranium – around 70 percent of its stockpile – to Russia in one batch by the end of the year, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said Thursday.
After further enrichment in Russia, France would have converted the uranium into fuel rods for return to Iran for use in the Tehran reactor, he said.
This would significantly restrain any covert arms pursuit, since 2,205 pounds (1,000 kilograms) is the commonly accepted amount of low-enriched uranium needed to produce weapons-grade uranium for a single nuclear warhead.
Based on Iran's present stockpile, the U.S. has estimated that Tehran could produce a nuclear weapon between 2010 and 2015, an assessment that broadly matches those from Israel and other nations.
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Associated Press writers Veronika Oleksyn in Vienna and Katarina Kratovac in Cairo contributed to this report.
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ALI AKBAR DAREINI | 10/23/09 05:18 PM |