Friday, 30 October 2009
Iran on Thursday rejected a plan to send its uranium to be processed overseas, just hours after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country was ready to cooperate with the West.
European diplomats and American officials were quoted by the New York Times on Thursday night as saying that Teheran had informed the UN of its decision, but had not provided a reason for backing out of the draft agreement formulated during a conference in Vienna last week. However, the sources said that the Iranians had objected to the main component of the plan, which called for a large quantity of its uranium stockpile to be transferred to Russia, where it would be enriched into metal fuel rods before returning to the Islamic republic.
The plan, meant to aid Iran in the powering of a small medical research reactor in its capital, would have ensured that the amount to be shipped - three quarters of its total stock - would leave Teheran with insufficient resources to produce a nuclear weapon.
Aside from the technical aspect, the deal was intended to build confidence and trust between Iran and the West.
Earlier this week, an Iranian official was quoted in Teheran's state media as saying that his country would seek "important changes" in the draft deal, requesting that progress be made in a more gradual manner and hinting that it may renege on the plan entirely and seek to purchase enriched uranium instead of committing to UN-brokered deals.
A senior European official quoted by the Times called the Iranian response "basically a refusal."
Meanwhile, the paper was told by a US National Security Council Spokesman Michael Hammer that the decision had yet to be made formal by the Iranian government.
In Washington, a key Senate committee passed sanctions legislation meant to cripple Teheran's ability to import gasoline, a day after a House committee did the same.
The legislation still needs to pass a full session of both houses of the legislature before it can become law.
Speaking at rally on Thursday in the northeastern city of Mashhad, Ahmadinejad reiterated Iran's "inalienable right" to uranium enrichment and lauded Western nations for their transition from "confrontation to interaction."
Ahmadinejad said that the "ground has been paved for nuclear cooperation," adding that Teheran was ready to work together with the UN nuclear watchdog to procure nuclear fuel supplies and technical know-how.
However, Iran's president then hedged on whether Iran would fulfill the agreement as it had been worked out.
Iran welcomed the international offer to ship out 70 percent of its enriched uranium to Russia for further enrichment, he said, but was vague as to whether the Islamic Republic would sign the deal.
