Asia

Home page

Asia

Ahmadinejad move signals wish for atom deal: envoy

04 February 2010 22:10 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ziya Agazade â€“ APA. VIENNA (Reuters) - The Iranian president’s announced readiness to send enriched uranium abroad signals a wish to cooperate for a deal with big powers to ease nuclear tension, Tehran’s envoy to the U.N. atomic agency said Thursday, APA reports citing â€œReutersâ€.

Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told Reuters he had not notified the International Atomic Energy Agency of any new Iranian position on the IAEA-brokered proposal, stalled for months by disputes over where and how to carry it out.

Russia, France and the United States, the other parties to the plan under which Iran would swap potential atom bomb material for fuel for nuclear medicine, want Tehran to inform the IAEA of Ahmadinejad’s gesture to prove he is serious.

Ahmadinejad said Tuesday Iran was now prepared to send low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad before getting reactor fuel back. Before, Tehran insisted on small swaps on its own soil.

That would defeat the draft plan’s purpose of reducing Iran’s total LEU reserve below the quantity required to set off an atomic bomb, if it were refined to high purity.
"What my president said in fact shows that Iran has the political will to facilitate ... cooperation rather than confrontation, and now its up to the others to use this opportunity," Soltanieh said.

"His message is, in fact, a very positive, constructive message, testing the political and goodwill of others to shift gears from confrontation to cooperation."

Soltanieh said he had not conveyed Ahmadinejad’s gesture to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano. Asked whether this would raise doubts whether Tehran had really shifted position, he said: "Please don’t make a judgment." He declined to be specific.