Tehran: Iran will not ship its low enriched
uranium abroad, a top security official said on Monday, renewing
the government's rejection of UN-drafted proposals aimed at
allaying concerns over its nuclear ambitions.
"No fuel is supposed to leave Iran," the Mehr news agency
quoted the deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security
Council, Ali Bagheri, as saying.
The shipping out of more than 70 percent of Iran's low
enriched uranium stocks is a central plank of the proposed
deal with the major powers under which it would receive fuel
enriched to the 20 percent level required for a Tehran
research reactor from Russia and France.
Bagheri is number two to Saeed Jalili, who heads the
council and is Iran's chief nuclear negotiator.
He said Iran was only ready to agree to an exchange
inside the country and said it needed to receive the fuel for
its reactor at the same time as it handed over its stocks.
"One of the ways to guarantee the supply of fuel for the
Tehran reactor is the simultaneous exchange of the 3.5 per
cent fuel for the 20 percent inside Iran," he said.
He said world powers "know Iran's position and, if they
wanted to disagree with a simultaneous exchange they would
have done it already."
Bureau Report
First Published: Monday, November 23, 2009, 22:58