Diplomats: Iran agrees to draft deal on uranium

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei awaits the start of a meeting of delegates from Iran, the U.S. Russia and France, on Monday, Oct. 19, 2009, at Vienna's International Center. The talks between the nations focus on a technical issue with huge strategic ramifications, whether Iran will farm out some of its uranium enrichment program to a foreign country.


Deputy Secretary of Energy from the U.S. Daniel B. Poneman waits for the start of a meeting of delegates from Iran, the U.S. Russia and France, on Monday, Oct. 19, 2009, at Vienna's International Center. The talks between the nations focus on a technical issue with huge strategic ramifications, whether Iran is ready to farm out some of its uranium enrichment program to a foreign country.



Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, front, arrives for a meeting of delegates from Iran, the U.S. Russia and France, on Monday, Oct. 19, 2009, at Vienna's International Center. The talks between the nations focus on a technical issue with huge strategic ramifications, whether Iran is ready to farm out some of its uranium enrichment program to a foreign country. Others are not identified.


Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, front arrives for a meeting of delegates from Iran, the U.S. Russia and France, on Monday, Oct. 19, 2009, at Vienna's International Center. The talks between the nations focus on a technical issue with huge strategic ramifications, whether Iran will farm out some of its uranium enrichment program to a foreign country. Others are not identified.


Overview of a meeting of delegates from Iran, the U.S. Russia and France, on Monday, Oct. 19, 2009, at Vienna's International Center. The talks between the nations focus on a technical issue with huge strategic ramifications, whether Iran will farm out some of its uranium enrichment program to a foreign country.


Deputy Secretary of Energy from the U.S. Daniel B. Poneman, left, and Glyn Davies, U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, wait for the start of a meeting of delegates from Iran, the U.S. Russia and France, on Monday, Oct. 19, 2009, at Vienna's International Center. The talks between the nations focus on a technical issue with huge strategic ramifications, whether Iran is ready to farm out some of its uranium enrichment program to a foreign country. Others are not identified.


The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran has agreed to a draft deal on its nuclear program.

In addition, diplomats say the deal would see the country ship out most of its enriched uranium to Russia, stripping Tehran of most of the material it would need to make a nuclear weapon.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Wednesday that Iran and the U.S., Russia and France have signed off on a draft deal that he hoped would be approved by the nations' capitals by Friday.

He gave no details. But a diplomat inside the closed meeting told The Associated Press that the draft foresees the export most of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium.

Iran says it is enriching to provide fuel for a future network of nuclear reactors. But enriched uranium can also be used to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

Negotiators from three powers and Iran are meeting for a third day in an attempt to persuade Tehran to ship most of its enriched uranium abroad.

An agreement would delay Tehran's potential ability to make a nuclear weapon because enriched uranium can be used for the fissile core of nuclear weapons. Tehran says it is enriching only to make fuel for a planned network of reactors.

The tentative plan envisions Russia enriching the material to a higher grade and then another country turning the uranium into metal fuel rods for Tehran's research reactor.

Iran's interlocutors are the U.S., Russia and France. The talks, which resumed Wednesday, opened Monday and have been repeatedly delayed as the two sides search for agreement.

"We have had very constructive discussions, intensive discussions," Iran's envoy to the atomic energy agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said after the meeting, according to news agencies. "There have been proposals. We had thorough discussions on these issues. We have to thoroughly study this text and have further elaboration in capitals and will come back and reflect."

Iran's drive to master nuclear technology has worried the West and Israel, the Middle East's sole atomic power. Physicists say Iran has produced more than enough reactor-grade nuclear material to convert into a single bomb if it were to withdraw from the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expel inspectors and begin further refining its supply.

The revelation of a secret uranium enrichment facility in Qum last month added to suspicions that Iran has created an undeclared parallel nuclear program beyond the eyes of international inspectors.

Under the terms of the deal sketched out before this week's meeting, Iran would send up to 80% of its supply of low-enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be further refined, and France, where it would be turned into plates for use in a medical research reactor.

Soltanieh said the U.S. played a key role in this week's talks, which officials said focused on hammering out details of the proposal.

"Iran and the United States discussed technical cooperation about procurement of equipment for the Tehran [research] reactor under the aegis of IAEA," he told Iran's Fars news agency. "The U.S. agreed in principle to cooperate" with Iran.

Anonymous officials quoted by Western news agencies said the deal has been hampered by tensions between Iran and France, which has taken an increasingly hard line on the Iranian nuclear issue under conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy's administration.

Soltanieh alluded to such complications, telling Fars that Russia "is the main partner in the deal for fuel supply, and France can cooperate with Russia if it is willing to do so."

By reducing Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium below the threshold for building a bomb, such a deal might temporarily ease pressure on the Obama administration, which has vowed to attempt diplomatic outreach to overcome 30 years of hostility with Iran and forge a deal over the nuclear program.

But if approved, the deal could also buy time for Iran to continue expanding its ability to produce nuclear fuel at its facility in Natanz.

"It's a big risk for Obama because the deal implicitly accepts Iran's right to enrichment," said Mark Fitzpatrick, a nonproliferation specialist and former U.S. diplomat at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies. "And it delays the sanctions that are seen as part of the key to an ultimate solution."





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Iran very close to produce Nuclear weapon-may expedite nuclear bom USA said.

Mohamed ElBaradei the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency

"If anybody has any information we have not shared, that has passed muster, been assessed critically in accordance with our practices, please step forward today. Otherwise, as a preacher would say, you should forever hold your peace," ElBaradei told delegates. "We have, in our reports, always tried not to understate the facts or overstate the facts. We have serious concerns, but we are not in a state of panic. Because we have not seen diversion...

conservative Jomhuri Eslami quoted Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).


President Ahmednijan visit the nuclear plan in Iran.

the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency urged the 35-nation governing body to “put (your) heads together to break the logjam,” on the same day that Tehran submitted a package of proposals to foreign powers. The proposal is still secret and not out yet to the press.

He criticised countries – he did not name them but was clearly referring to Israel and France — who have suggested he hid evidence from his latest written report on Iran, pointing undeniably to illicit Iranian research into the making of atomic bombs.

“Talking about formalities, whether the work plan has been implemented or not, whether people telling us how to suck eggs, how to write our reports, whether there is a (secret) annex (on Iran) — these are not the issues,” he said in a swipe at both sides of the debate.

“If anybody…has any information we have not shared, that has passed muster, been assessed critically in accordance with our practices, please step forward today. Otherwise, as a preacher would say, you should forever hold your peace,” ElBaradei told delegates.

“We have, in our reports, always tried not to understate the facts or overstate the facts. We have serious concerns, but we are not in a state of panic. Because we have not seen diversion of nuclear material, we have not seen components of nuclear weapons. We do not have any information to that effect.”

ElBaradei’s Aug. 28 report lent credence to a Western the intelligence dossier implying military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear activity. But ElBaradei said caveats were still in order.

“It’s alleged (studies), the whole question is about accuracy, whether this is real — that is the $64,000 question. That is where we are stuck, we have a limited ability to authenticate,” ElBaradei said. “People talk about assessments. I’m not a rocket scientist,” the 67-year-old lawyer and diplomat said.

But the agency is losing patience with Iran, he said, for stonewalling IAEA efforts to verify that its nuclear programme is peaceful.

“I know you have been reacting to others,” ElBaradei told Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh, referring to Tehran’s 2006 decision to stop wider-ranging agency inspections because of U.N. sanctions. “But you are not penalizing others, you are penalizing yourself.”

Further, ElBaradei prodded Iran to stop evading a U.S.-led big power offer of negotiations that would provide it major trade benefits if it reined in its nuclear activity and made it transparent to non-proliferation inspectors.

“I’ve told (Iran) I don’t see where the problem is. The U.S. is making an offer without preconditions on that base of mutual respect. Soltanieh has said they are ready to have a comprehensive dialogue. I say the offer by the US can not be refused because it has no conditions attached to it and is based on mutual respect.”

He also warned Iran’s strongest Western critics against hyping the Iranian threat by talking about supposed IAEA cover-ups. “(You are) trying to undermine the agency, (but) in the end (you are) undermining your own credibility. We went through this during the time of Iraq.”

An outspoken ElBaradei clashed with the former U.S. administration over what he saw as its confrontational policy towards Iraq and Iran. He has said that anyone considering military force against the Islamic Republic would be “bonkers”.

ElBaradei’s more soft-spoken, reserved successor, Yukiya Amano of Japan, takes over in December.

Iran responds : No suspension of uranium enrichment: Iran

TEHRAN — Iran's proposal to world powers aimed at resolving the standoff over its atomic programme talks of global nuclear disarmament, a top Iranian official was quoted on Thursday as saying, while insisting there will be no suspension of uranium enrichment.

"This proposal covers all issues of interests... non-proliferation, disarmament... and using technology for peaceful purpose," the conservative Jomhuri Eslami quoted Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as saying.

The paper said Soltanieh made the comments in an address to the IAEA's board members at their meeting in Vienna on Wednesday.

Iran's policy, he stressed, "is not to have suspension (of uranium enrichment) and to fully go ahead with our undeniable right of using peaceful nuclear technology."

Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Wednesday handed over Tehran's package of proposals to representatives of six world powers -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

These nations, known as P5+1 are charged with negotiating with Iran to resolve the controversy over its atomic programme, which the international community suspects is aimed at making nuclear weapons. Tehran denies these charges.

Details of Iran's proposals to P5+1 have not been made public.

US respond : Iran may have fuel for crude nuclear weapon
United States military and intelligence officials have revealed that Iran may possess enough fuel to assemble a crude nuclear weapon, although how quickly such a device can be built remains unclear.

Given the pace of Iran’s uranium enrichment, some observers are advising President Barack Obama to begin preparing military options.

The New York Times reported that Iran “has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon.”

In interviews over the past two months, intelligence and military officials, and members of the Obama administration, have said they are convinced that Iran has made significant progress on uranium enrichment, especially over the past year…

It is unclear how many months — or even years — it would take Iran to complete that final design work, and then build a warhead that could fit atop its long-range missiles. That question has been the subject of a series of sharp, behind-the-scenes exchanges between the Israelis and top American intelligence and military officials, dating back nearly two years and increasing in intensity in recent months.

Meanwhile Iran responded by presenting a new proposal for talks. The content of that proposal has not been made public

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