VIENNA – Iran said yesterday it would only give an answer next week to a UN-drafted deal for it to cut an atomic stockpile the West fears could be used for weapons, ignoring a deadline and challenging key terms of the pact.
Iranian officials said Tehran preferred to acquire enriched uranium abroad rather than send out its own for processing into fuel for nuclear medicine, as western powers said it had tentatively agreed to do at talks in Geneva on October 1st on initial ways to defuse growing confrontation over its disputed atomic aspirations.
The officials’ remarks suggested that, instead of engaging with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) draft deal, Iran was following a well-tested strategy of buying time to blunt western pressure for harsher international sanctions while it presses on with nuclear research. The UN nuclear agency said it had been told by Iran that it was considering the proposal “in depth and in a favourable light”, but it needed until the middle of next week to take a position – flouting the IAEA’s deadline of yesterday for responses.
It said IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei hoped Iran’s reply “will equally be positive, since approval of this agreement will signal a new era of co-operation” after seven years of standoff.
The IAEA did not say why Iran required more time.
Russia, France and the US, the other parties to the deal drafted by Dr ElBaradei, have endorsed the plan. It would require the Islamic republic, whose nuclear secrecy and restrictions on IAEA inspections have raised alarm, to send 1.2 tonnes of its known 1.5-tonne stockpile of low-enriched uranium (Leu) to Russia and France by the end of the year.
There it would be further processed, in a way that would make it difficult to use for warheads, and returned to Iran as fuel plates to power a Tehran reactor that makes radioactive medical isotopes but is due to run out of its imported fuel in a year.
The deal would test Iran’s stated intention to use enriched uranium only for peaceful energy.
It would also gain time for broader talks on world powers’ ultimate goal: that Iran allay fears that it has a secret nuclear weapons programme by limiting enrichment, in return for trade and technology benefits.
But the stance taken by Iranian officials offered little to douse concern about a nuclear “breakout” risk in Iran.
Buying enriched uranium abroad would not only fail to reduce the domestic stockpile worrying the international community, but would also require sanctions imposed on Iran since 2006 to be waived to allow it to import such sensitive nuclear material.
“Iran is interested in buying fuel for the Tehran research reactor within the framework of a clear proposal,” Iranian state television quoted a member of Iran’s negotiating team at the nuclear talks in Vienna as saying.
“We are waiting for the other party’s constructive and trust-building response.”
A US state department spokesman said Washington still hoped Iran would answer positively next week. “Obviously we would have preferred to have a response today. We approach this with a sense of urgency,” he said.
French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was quoted as saying that, “via the indications we are receiving, matters are not very positive”, and said this augured ill for further talks between Iran and six major powers planned shortly.
“If these indications remain negative and there is no consensus on the expert level . . . this will reflect negatively on the continuation of the political contacts at the level of the 5+1 meeting in Geneva.”
A senior developing nation diplomat in Vienna with good contacts with the Iranians said he doubted Iran would agree to transfer the bulk of its Leu stockpile abroad. “They will not want to lose much of their main bargaining chip, with negotiations pending on broader strategic issues in the nuclear file,” he said.
Dr ElBaradei hammered out the draft in three days of difficult consultations in Vienna with the four nations’ delegations. The deal would reduce Iran’s reserve of Leu below the threshold that could yield enough fissile material for one nuclear weapon if refined to 90 per cent purity. Leu is refined to 5 per cent. The reactor’s fuel is 20 per cent pure.
The Islamic republic says its nuclear energy programme is only for producing electricity, but it is years away from having any nuclear power plants that would use Leu.
Iran has repeatedly rejected UN and IAEA calls on it to limit enrichment or grant unfettered UN inspections, meant to verify that it is not trying to develop nuclear arms covertly. – (Reuters)