Iran wants to purchase nuclear fuel, seeks more talks (2nd Roundup)

Nov 2, 2009, 17:22 GMT

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

That would go against the concept favoured by the United States, Russia and France, who want to see Iranian uranium shipped out of the country to be made into fuel to 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.'

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.

Guarantees that Iran will get its fuel was the core issue the Islamic Republic wants to discuss, Iranian 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.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei acknowledged that this a key point, when he told the UN General Assembly in New York that 'the issue at stake remains that of mutual guarantees amongst the parties.'

ElBaradei, who will retire from the IAEA in Vienna at the end of this month, urged Iran to respond as soon as possible to his nuclear fuel proposal, which he said would build trust for future dialogue between Iran and the international community.

'I should add, however, that trust and confidence building are an incremental process that requires focussing on the big picture and a willingness to take risks for peace,' he said, asking the involved parties to use this 'fleeting opportunity.'

Soltanieh 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 was effectively off.

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

Last week, Mottaki said Iran might purchase part of the fuel and at the same time deliver parts of its own low-enriched uranium, but Soltanieh on Monday stuck to his line that his country wanted to buy, without elaborating further.

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

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.

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

At the UN, ElBaradei said that a lesson from the Iraq war and from the North Korean nuclear crisis should be drawn for Iran's case, namely that 'we must let diplomacy and thorough verification take their course, however lengthy and tiresome the process might be.'

He indirectly criticized the US and its allies for launching the Iraq war. 'This was done on the basis of a false pretext, without authorisation from the Security Council,' he said, and despite the fact that UN inspectors had found no weapons of mass destruction programme in Iraq.