Head of Trend News Persian Desk, Dalga Khatinoglu

France demanded Iran to give Russia 1,300 kg uranium enriched by 3.5 percent.

To provide fuel for Tehran's nuclear laboratories, Iran is ready to cooperate with "5 +1" countries, Iranian President said last month during his visit to New York to attend the UN General Assembly. This laboratory produces radioactive isotopes for medicines. In order to provide reactor with fuel, Iran intends to give any country the uranium enriched by 3.5 percent in order to obtain uranium enriched at 19.75 percent.

To provide this laboratory with fuel, in 1993 Iran bought from Argentina 30 kg uranium enriched at 19.75 percent. 

This laboratory reactor in Tehran was built 40 years ago by the U.S., and its main function is to produce medicines. 150-300 kg uranium enriched by 19.75 percent can provide the reactor with fuel for a period of at least 20 years.

Theoretically, Iran's transferring 1,300 kg of uranium reserves to Russia could become a happy and positive step both for the West and Iran.

Iran currently has 1,500 kilograms of uranium enriched by 3.5 percent, and enriching it by 90 percent, the country can provide fuel for two or three nuclear heads.

From 1,300 kilograms of uranium enriched by 3.5 percent, 250 kilograms of uranium enriched by 19.75 percent is produced, which could provide the Tehran laboratory with fuel more than 20 years. Thus, both sides - Iran and the West must remain satisfied with this step.

However, practically, Iran's sending a main part of uranium reserves abroad or the West's transferring 19.75-percent uranium to Iran is under question. First, it is because of the fact that so far the UN Security Council (UNSC) has issued 5 resolutions against Iran to stop its nuclear program. Under the resolutions 1695, 1737 and 1747, to transfer any kind of nuclear fuel (whether raw uranium "yellowcake" - is a highly refined form of uranium - or enriched uranium) to Iran is banned. In the paragraphs beginning from the third to twelfth in the most recent resolution, to sell equipment used at nuclear facilities to Iran, along with nuclear fuel, is also banned. Thus, transferring 250 kilograms of uranium (19.75-percent) to Iran violates the provision of the UN Security Council resolutions.

Despite the military threat of the West, the UN Security Council resolutions and international sanctions, for five years Tehran continues development of nuclear programs and does not intend to easily sell 1,500 kilograms of uranium enriched by 3.2 percent to the West.

There is an assumption that Iran, because of inflation, unemployment and tensions within the country, is trying to achieve some changes in relations with the West to solve its problems. Another version is that the meeting of the UN General Assembly has identified yet another center for uranium enrichment, and now Iran, in especially difficult circumstances, wants to hush up the incident.

The Uranium Enrichment Center near the Iranian city of Qum with a total of three thousand centrifuges is insufficient to provide nuclear reactors at an industrial level.

In any case, Iran has not yet transferred the existing 1,300 kilograms of uranium for further enrichment to any of the foreign countries, and, perhaps, all this talk is simply idle talk.