Iran favours purchase of nuclear fuel, envoy says (Roundup)

Nov 2, 2009, 15:24 GMT

Vienna - Iran favours purchasing nuclear fuel for its research reactor, Tehran's UN ambassador in Vienna said Monday, indicating the country is reluctant to send uranium abroad for reprocessing.

That would go against the concept favoured by the United States, Russia and France, who want to see Iranian uranium shipped abroad for further processing into material that would run the medical-use reactor in Tehran.

These three countries have already agreed to such a plan drawn up by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki said in Kuala Lumpur that there should be further talks to 'review and reconsider all the issues.'

Guarantees that Iran will get its fuel was the core issue the Islamic Republic wants to discuss, Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told the German Press Agency dpa.

'We have had a confidence deficit in the past,' Soltanieh said.

The Islamic Republic had never received certain shipments of nuclear materials promised by the US and France in the past, he explained.

Soltanieh, however, did not say whether this was Iran's final reply, and whether the deal made last month in Vienna over exporting its own low-enriched uranium to Russia and France was off.

A diplomat in Vienna said Soltanieh did not necessarily rule out sending uranium abroad, but that Iran might be after a direct swap of uranium for fuel, rather than having to wait for it to be processed.

Soltanieh said his country wants to purchase fuel along the lines of a deal it made with Argentina in the 1980s for supplies to the Tehran reactor. That deal did not include any export or swap involving Iranian nuclear material.

Reducing Iran's nuclear material stock, even if only temporarily, is the key reason why Western countries support the IAEA's concept. They see this as a way Iran can demonstrate it is enriching uranium for reactors, and not to make weapons.

Iran evaluated last month's nuclear fuel talks with the IAEA, the US, Russia and France positively, Soltanieh said, 'and now we are ready for the next round of technical discussions.'

The Vienna diplomat said the call for further talks was a delaying tactic.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Monday joined other Western countries in calling for a swift Iranian response to the IAEA's 4-country fuel arrangement deal, which the other parties have already approved.

Miliband was in Moscow to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, who also called on Tehran to agree to the uranium arrangement.