Moscow: Russia on Wednesday welcomed Iran's
decision to send uranium to third countries for enrichment and
processing nuclear fuel for its reactors as proposed by the UN
nuclear watchdog.
"If Iran is ready to return to the earlier agreed-on
plan, we will only welcome this," Russian Foreign Minister
Lavrov today said.
He was commenting on the unexpected move of Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who dropped his opposition to
sending uranium abroad for enrichment.
"Some people made a fuss about it. But there is no
problem. We will seal a contract and we will give you 3.5 per
cent uranium to enrich it to 20 per cent in four or five
months and return it to us," Ahmadinejad said in an interview
aired on state TV.
Ahmadinejad dismissed concerns that the uranium
would not be returned.
In such a case, Iran would continue to independently
enrich uranium.
Under a plan drawn up in October at IAEA talks in
Vienna between Iran, the UN, the US, Russia and France, the
Islamic Republic was supposed to ship out its low-enriched
uranium to Russia, where it would be enriched and then sent to
France to prepare it for use in Iranian research reactor.
However, Iran subsequently refused to send its
stockpile to France and Russia, and the US proposed allowing
Tehran to send its uranium to any of several nations,
including Turkey.
Under the new plan, Iran would ship 900 kg out of
the total of 1200 kg to Turkey for further enrichment, after
which it would be sent to France for processing into fuel for
Iranian power plants, and returned to Iran via Turkey, RIA
Novosti reported.
However, Tehran rejected the proposal and suggested
it could consider a simultaneous swap of its low-enriched
uranium for 20 percent enriched uranium, but that the exchange
would have to take place on its own territory.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, February 03, 2010, 20:40