Iran holds talks with France over uranium-exchange deal

Jan 29, 2010, 12:37 GMT

Tehran - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said he met with a French government representative to discuss a uranium-exchange deal, the ISNA news agency reported Friday.

Mottaki met with an unnamed adviser of French President Nicolas Sarkozy on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the report said.

Mottaki said that 'new ideas have been raised in the meeting' without elaborating on the content or timing of the discussions, ISNA said.

According to a plan brokered in October by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran's low-enriched uranium was to be exported to Russia for further enrichment and then to France for processing into fuel for a Tehran reactor.

'The deal is still on the table, and we hope that with pragmatism adopted by the other (world powers), the negotiations would lead to a concrete result,' Mottaki said.

He added that Iran still could not accept the initial deal, which would take most of its uranium away for about a year.

Tehran was prepared either to buy the more highly enriched uranium outright or exchange its own for more highly enriched uranium if the swap took place on Iranian soil.

The alternative would be for Iran to process its own uranium, he said. This is the scenario that the international community is seeking to avoid.

The world powers and the IAEA have so far refused to have the handover take place in Iran.

Iran insists it has the right to pursue peaceful nuclear development as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and an IAEA member and rejects Western charges that it has been working on a secret programme to make an atomic bomb.

However, its lack of transparency regarding its nuclear programme and refusal to suspend uranium enrichment have led to several United Nations Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions against the Islamic state.