World powers "no longer seeking enrichment stop": Iran paper (Roundup)

Oct 6, 2009, 14:12 GMT

Tehran - The six world powers have put aside their initial demand that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment process, the Tehran daily Kayhan said in an editorial Tuesday.

The paper also quoted Iran's nuclear chief Ali-Akbar Salehi as saying that Iran will install a new generation of centrifuges in the recently disclosed enrichment site.

Kayhan said the world powers in Geneva last week welcomed Iran's plan to exchange low-enriched uranium for high-enriched material for its research reactor in Tehran, guaranteeing a level of 5 per cent.

Iran had always insisted its uranium enrichment would be only be used for making nuclear fuel, said the daily that is close to both supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

'After Geneva, our opponents have granted Iran this right and de facto dropped their initial demand for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment,' it said, referring to the talks with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

But diplomats from two of these countries told the German Press Agency dpa that the group had not abandoned its goal of having the Islamic state halt its enrichment plant in Natanz.

The countries are proposing an initial 'freeze for freeze' approach to get substantial negotiations going. This would mean that Iran stops expanding the Natanz site, while the six countries do not pass new sanctions.

'But of course the call for suspension has not been abandoned,' one of the diplomats said.

He said the six countries were in no position to change their stance, as the UN Security Council has passed legally binding resolutions urging Iran to stop using this sensitive technology.

Iran on Sunday agreed with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei that the newly-revealed nuclear plant near the holy city of Qom - so far known as Fordo - would be inspected by the IAEA on October 25.

Iran has started testing the new type of IR-2 centrifuges early this year, which are more than twice faster than the models being used in the main enrichment site of Natanz. Iran has informed the IAEA in Vienna of the testing.

The Fordo site is scheduled to become operational by the end of 2010.

Salehi is expected to travel to Vienna on October 19 to Vienna to discuss the uranium exchange scheme with technical experts of France, Russia and the United States.

Iran says that the uranium exchange and IAEA inspection had nothing to do with the world powers but was coordinated with Vienna- based agency before the Geneva meeting, although EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana described them as key outcomes of the conference.

The next full round of nuclear talks with the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany is scheduled to be held before the end of the month, probably after the IAEA inspection of the new site.