TEHRAN: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran is willing to send its uranium abroad to be further enriched, as Western powers moved Wednesday towards tougher sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear defiance.
Iran would have no problem, Ahmadinejad said in a television interview late Tuesday, sending out it stocks of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to be further purified into reactor fuel.
His statement came after the expiry on Jan. 31 of a deadline set by Tehran for world powers to respond to its counter proposal on a UN-brokered plan concerning Iran s nuclear enrichment program.
There is really no problem. Some made a fuss for nothing. There is no problem. We sign a contract. We give them [world powers] 3.5 percent [enriched uranium] and it will take four or five months for them to give us the 20 percent [enriched uranium], he said in an interview broadcast live on state television.
Iran needs nuclear fuel to power its UN-monitored reactor in Tehran but the West fears the program is masking efforts to produce atomic weapons – claims vehemently denied by the Islamic republic.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has proposed, in a bid to allay Western fears about Iran s atomic ambitions, that Tehran ship out its low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia and France to be further purified into reactor fuel.
Iran, which agreed in principle to the offer during talks with world powers in Geneva in October, later appeared to reject the deal and said it preferred a gradual swap of LEU with fuel – preferably on Iranian soil.
Ahmadinejad s latest remarks reiterate his original support of the IAEA-brokered deal and which he repeated during an interview with AFP in December.
However, his time-frame of four or five months for the process appears to fall short of the period of about a year experts say is needed for 3.5 percent LEU to be enriched to 20 percent.
Over the past few months, the hardliner has also threatened to defy world powers and warned that Iran would press on with its own enrichment program if they continued threatening further sanctions.
Foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said last week that new ideas were being discussed regarding the nuclear deal but did not elaborate.
Ahmadinejad, speaking rather casually in Tuesday s interview which mainly focused on Iran s economic issues, did not say how much LEU Iran would be ready to ship out.
The UN-brokered deal proposes taking out 70 percent of Tehran s LEU stock, a move which it hopes would drastically curtail any potential atomic weapons program.
On the other hand he also said that world powers had given messages to Iran of accepting [the exchange of uranium) inside Iran…they have also given messages… saying even your (Iran) fuel can stay in Iran and we (world powers) produce that (high enriched uranium) and we exchange it.
He did not reveal when these indications were given to Iran by world powers.
The United States said Tuesday it hopes to consult with China and four other powers in coming days about Iran s nuclear ambitions in a bid to narrow the gap with Beijing over the need for further sanctions.
As a close ally of Iran with oil interests in the country, China – a permanent member of the UN Security Council – is reluctant to further isolate Iran, which is already under three sets of UN sanctions over its controversial nuclear program.
US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley highlighted the importance of more talks with the P5-plus-1, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France – plus Germany.
Washington has communicated very forcefully to China that this is an issue… that s important to them, just as much as it s important to us and to others in the region, Crowley told reporters in Washington.
The P5-plus-1 met in New York on Jan. 16 but reached no decision on further sanctions against Iran. China sent a lower level official to the talks attended by the political directors of the State Department and foreign ministries of the other four countries. – AFP
