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Iran yesterday indicated it would only give up low-enriched uranium from its stockpile in a simultaneous exchange within its borders for pre-enriched medical reactor fuel, placing in question Tehran's willingness to accept an International Atomic Energy Agency plan aimed at easing U.S. and European concerns that the Middle Eastern state might try to build a nuclear weapon, Interfax reported (see GSN, Feb. 4).
(Feb. 5) -
A technician works at Iran's Isfahan uranium conversion facility in 2004. Tehran yesterday demanded modifications to a U.N. proposal for enrichment of Iranian uranium (Getty Images).
"Our condition is that this exchange take place in Iran's territory synchronously and simultaneously," said Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mahmoud Reza Sajjadi.
On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed openness to a bulk transfer of his nation's uranium, a key element of the U.N. proposal that Tehran had ruled out for months. Under the plan, Russia and France would enrich a large portion of Iran's stockpiled uranium for use at a medical research reactor in Tehran, deferring Iran's ability to fuel a bomb long enough to negotiate a longer-term solution to the dispute over its nuclear capabilities.
Officially, Iran has only offered to give up small quantities of its low-enriched uranium at a time in simultaneous exchanges for pre-enriched medical reactor fuel. It was unclear whether Sajjadi's remarks were intended to reaffirm Tehran's stated position or to qualify the Iranian president's recent comments (Interfax, Feb. 4).
Ahmadinejad probably did not intend to suggest his country was altering its stance on the U.N. plan, U.S. officials who examined an unedited transcript of his remarks told the Washington Post. Tehran has not communicated any policy shift to the International Atomic Energy Agency, diplomats noted (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Feb. 5).
Still, the country has allegedly been pursuing an arrangement under which it could receive medical reactor fuel within four or five months of sending low-enriched uranium to Japan, Time magazine reported (Tony Karon, Time, Feb. 5).
Ahmadinejad's remarks reflected a willingness to collaborate with major powers, Iran's ambassador to the U.N. nuclear watchdog said yesterday.
"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," Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh said, according to Reuters. "His message is, in fact, a very positive, constructive message, testing the political and goodwill of others to shift gears from confrontation to cooperation" (Mark Heinrich, Reuters I, Feb. 4).
Germany, though, warned that Iran could only avoid new economic penalties by participating in constructive dialogue.
"For the past two years Iran has repeatedly bluffed and played tricks," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. "It has played for time and of course we in the international community cannot accept a nuclear-armed Iran" (Rohan/Nienaber, Reuters II, Feb. 5).
Meanwhile, the Italian petroleum firm Eni S.pA yesterday announced it would end its business in Iran following the expiration of two current oil field development deals in the country, the Associated Press reported. The move comes as Western powers move to increase Iran's isolation in hopes of persuading it to resolve the nuclear dispute (Aoife White, Associated Press/Washington Post, Feb. 4).
Elsewhere, IAEA documents indicate that Iran received nuclear weapons guidance from a scientist who once worked on advanced nuclear warheads for the Soviet Union, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.
The scientist, who worked in Iran during the late 1990s, specialized in high-speed cameras used to verify the symmetry of high-explosives blasts for triggering nuclear explosions, says the IAEA summary, which notes that the information was confirmed by Western intelligence agencies and diplomats.
The German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which reported on the IAEA records, added that Iran was pursuing a nuclear warhead sized for its Shahab 3 ballistic missiles as well as a two-point implosion system (see GSN, Nov. 6, 2009; Deutsche Presse-Agentur/Monsters and Critics, Feb. 5).