TEHRAN, Iran — Iran is still studying a U.N.-drafted plan to ship much of its uranium to Russia for further enrichment and will formally respond to the offer next week, Iran’s envoy to the U.N. nuclear watchdog said today.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s permanent envoy to the U.N. nuclear agency, told Iran’s state Press TV that Iran is “working and elaborating on all the details of this proposal” and that he would inform the International Atomic Energy Agency “next week about our evaluation.”
The draft plan was put forth Wednesday after three days of talks between Iran and world powers in Vienna, Austria.
The plan is seen as a way to curb Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon. The United States, Russia and France officially endorsed the deal today.
Soltanieh’s statement indicated that Iran could still accept the plan. Tehran’s acceptance would ease Western fears about Iran’s potential to make a nuclear weapon.
In Vienna, the IAEA said today that Iran told the agency’s chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, it is “considering the proposal in depth and in a favorable light, but needs until the middle of next week to provide a response.”
However, Soltanieh’s comments came just hours after Iran’s state TV quoted an unnamed source close to the Iranian nuclear negotiating team as saying Iran wants to buy nuclear fuel it needs for a research reactor, rather than accept the U.N. proposed plan.
The official said Tehran has its own proposal on purchasing nuclear fuel and would wait for a response from the world powers.
While the TV report was not an outright rejection, it raised concerns since Iran has often used counterproposals as a way to draw out nuclear negotiations with the West.
On Thursday, Iran’s deputy speaker of the parliament, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, dismissed the U.N. plan, saying Iran cannot accept U.S. demands to ship its low enriched uranium abroad.
The talks in Vienna followed a similar meeting at the beginning of October in Geneva that included the highest-level bilateral contact between the U.S. and Iran in years. ElBaradei said after the Vienna talks ended that he hoped Iran and its three interlocutors — the U.S., Russia and France — would approve the plan by today.
Iran is currently 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 1.2 tons (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 on Thursday.
After further enrichment in Russia, France would have converted the uranium into fuel rods that would be returned to Iran for use in the Tehran reactor, he said.
Iran’s acquiescence with the U.N. plan significantly eased fears around Iran’s nuclear ambitions, since 2,205 pounds (0.98 tons, 1,000 kilograms) is the commonly accepted amount of low-enriched uranium needed to produce weapons-grade uranium for a single nuclear bomb.
Based on the present Iranian 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.
International concerns about Iran’s nuclear program spiked in September when it was revealed the country was constructing a previously undisclosed uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom.
Iran subsequently agreed to allow U.N. inspectors to visit the facility, and the official Islamic Republic News Agency said today that representatives from the International Atomic Energy Agency would arrive Saturday to start the inspection.
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