19 November 2009 / REUTERS, TEHRAN
Iran’s foreign minister was quoted on Wednesday as saying that Tehran would not send its enriched uranium abroad for further processing but would consider swapping it for nuclear fuel within its borders.
“Surely we will not send our 3.5 percent fuel abroad but can review swapping it simultaneously with nuclear fuel inside Iran,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the ISNA students’ news agency. A draft deal brokered by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, calls on Iran to send some 75 percent of its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France to be turned into fuel for a Tehran medical research reactor. The United States has rejected Iranian calls for amendments and further talks on the deal and US President Barack Obama said time was running out for diplomacy to resolve a dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been trying to find possible compromises to rescue the deal, including Iran parking its LEU in a third country, pending delivery of reactor fuel. Turkey says it would be willing to store Iran’s enriched uranium.
