Reuters/Tehran
Iran’s envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog agency will present Tehran’s position on a draft nuclear fuel deal in Vienna today, a semi-official Iranian news agency reported yesterday.
Mehr news agency said ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh would personally give Iran’s response to Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on the UN-drafted proposal for Iran to send most of its enriched uranium abroad.
A diplomat close to the IAEA said the UN experts who arrived in Iran early on Sunday to inspect the new enrichment site about 160km south of Tehran also would return to Vienna today.
Neither the IAEA nor Iranian officials have made any comments about the inspections of the new site, and it is not clear when and if the findings will be made public.
Echoing a report by Iranian state television on Tuesday, Mehr said Iran would accept the framework of the UN agreement on enrichment but propose changes, a move that could unravel the plan and expose Tehran to the threat of harsher sanctions.
The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, did not directly confirm the Mehr report but said Soltanieh left Tehran for Vienna early yesterday.
“He will meet with Mr ElBaradei at the first appropriate opportunity and present what he received in Tehran,” Salehi said.
Under the draft deal hammered out by ElBaradei earlier this month after talks in Vienna with Iran, the US, France and Russia, Iran would send low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad for further processing and eventual use in a research reactor.
The draft pact calls for Iran to transfer about 75% of its known 1.5 tonnes of LEU to Russia for further enrichment by the end of this year, then to France for conversion into fuel plates. These would be returned to Tehran to power a research reactor that produces radio-isotopes for cancer treatment.
Iran says it is enriching uranium only for power plant fuel, not for nuclear warheads. But its history of nuclear secrecy and continued restrictions on UN inspections have raised Western suspicions Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons capability.
At the UN, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon praised Iran for its decision to allow UN nuclear inspectors access to the Qom site, whose existence was only made public recently.
“The inspection of the new Iranian enrichment site in Qom, conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency this week, is a positive step,” Ban told reporters.
Senior Iranian lawmakers have said Iran should import foreign nuclear fuel rather than send abroad by the end of this year much of its own LEU stock—a crucial strategic asset in talks with world powers—as the UN proposal stipulates.
State television said on Tuesday Iran opposed sending its uranium stockpile abroad in one go.
“According to an informed source in Vienna, Iran in its final response to the agency, while accepting the framework, will propose changes,” Mehr said in its report yesterday.
Iran’s official Irna news agency also quoted comments from a foreign ministry source, indicating that Tehran did not trust France to be part of the enrichment plan.
“France will be a loser because of its radical position...,” the ministry source was quoted as saying.
“The French foreign minister’s comments once again showed that France does not have any positive will to co-operate with the Islamic Republic on enrichment and our mistrust towards that country was completely correct and based on the realities,” the source continued.