Madrid: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva on Wednesday warned of a setback over Iran`s nuclear
programme if the UN Security Council failed to show a
willingness to negotiate with Tehran following its fuel swap
deal.
"It depends on the UN Security Council to sit down with a
willingness to negotiate, because if it feels it does not want
to negotiate, everything will be put back," he told a business
conference in Madrid.
He was reacting to a UN draft resolution introduced by
the United States yesterday to slap tough new sanctions on
Iran, despite Iran`s fuel swap deal aimed at averting such
sanctions.
The deal signed Monday by the foreign ministers of Iran,
Turkey and Brazil commits Iran to depositing 1,200 kilogrammes
of low enriched uranium (LEU) in Turkey in return for fuel for
a research reactor.
Iran has touted it as a breakthrough but Western
countries have remained sceptical and made clear it does not
remove the need for new UN sanctions.
"The only thing that we wanted was to convince Iran that
it must make a commitment with" the International Atomic
Energy Agency "to negotiate and place its uranium in Turkey --
and that`s what was agreed."
The deal "is exactly what the United States wanted to do
five months ago."
The United States, France, Russia and the IAEA made an
offer last October to ship most of Iran`s low-enriched uranium
out of the country in return for higher grade reactor fuel
supplied by Russia and France. Iran rejected the offer.
Western nations suspect Iran`s nuclear programme hides a
covert effort to make a nuclear bomb. Iran denies the charges.
PTI
