Siavosh Ghazi
Agence France Presse
TEHRAN: Iran said on Friday it was ready for immediate talks with the United States, Russia and France over an exchange of nuclear fuel and added that it was also against stockpiling higher enriched uranium.
The comments by the Islamic Republic’s atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi came as Washington decided to fan out envoys across Asia, the Middle East and the United Arab Emirates, asking its partners to levy tighter sanctions against Tehran.
“We are ready even in the next few days to start negotiations with the other parties” over the fuel swap, Salehi said to Mehr news agency.
He said talks on this issue with the so-called Vienna group, comprising the United States, Russia and France, will be held in Vienna, where the UN atomic watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is based.
The Vienna group has raised questions about a proposal forwarded by Iran, Brazil and Turkey concerning a fuel swap.
The May 17 proposal, known as the Tehran Declaration, stipulates that Tehran send 1,200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in return for 20 percent high-enriched uranium to be supplied at a later date.
The enriched uranium when converted into fuel plates, will be used for a research reactor in Tehran.
Salehi said Iran has already responded to the questions raised by the Vienna group, but that any other “technical” queries can be answered during another meeting.
The Tehran Declaration was Iran’s counter-proposal to an earlier plan drafted by the IAEA for a fuel-swap deal.
After that plan hit deadlock, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered Salehi to produce 20 percent enriched uranium inside Iran, in defiance of world powers’ requests for Tehran to stop the process.
Enriching uranium is at the heart of a controversy over Iran’s nuclear program because the material can be used to power nuclear reactors as well as to make atom bombs.
Experts say that by enriching uranium to 20 percent, Iran has theoretically come closer to enriching it to the 90 percent purity required for making nuclear weapons.
Tehran denies that its uranium-enrichment program has any military goals. But the world powers which dismiss Tehran’s arguments have levied new sanctions against Iran.
On Friday, Salehi again attempted to clarify Iran’s position, saying that it was against stockpiling the 20 percent enriched uranium.
“We need 20 percent fuel for the Tehran research reactor at the moment,” Salehi said. “We have said before that we are producing 20 percent only for our needs. We do not want to stockpile 20 percent fuel.”
He and other Iranian officials have previously said that if Iran gets the fuel required for the Tehran reactor which makes medical isotopes, it would
stop producing the high-enriched material.
Salehi, meanwhile, indicated that the overall nuclear talks between Iran and the six world powers – Britain, China, France, Russia, the US and Germany – could be held in Turkey at the the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, in mid-September.
“As I know, Iran prefers to organize these talks in Turkey,” he told ISNA news agency.
Ahmadinejad has ordered a freeze on these talks until the end of August as a “penalty” for UN sanctions.
The US announced Thursday that top officials would visit China, the United Arab Emirates and other key countries in support of tighter sanctions against Tehran.
“China is of concern to us in this regard,” Robert Einhorn, the US State Department’s special adviser for non-proliferation and arms control, told an investigative committee.
“We need for them to enforce the Security Council resolutions conscientiously and we also need for them not to ‘backfill’ when responsible countries have distanced themselves from Iran.”
China, which has emerged as Iran’s largest trading partner in recent years, backed the latest UN sanctions, but has consistently insisted on a diplomatic solution to the nuclear controversy.
On Friday, Beijing opposed the recent unilateral sanctions imposed by the EU that target Iran’s vital energy sector.
“China disapproves of the unilateral sanctions put in place by the EU against Iran,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Friday that his government was skeptical about the effectiveness of the latest UN sanctions targeting Iran.
“They’re determined to get nuclear military capability. We see it,” he said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” television program.
“I don’t believe that sanctions will work,” Barak added.
But he said that despite skepticism, Israel was willing to give the latest round of United Nations pressure on Tehran more time to have an effect.
“I think that the essence of it we still believe it’s still time for sanctions, to see whether they’re working. But as I said, we have to realize, we cannot wink in front of tough realities, however tough they might be,” Barak added.