Iran wants to buy reactor fuel

Iran wants to buy reactor fuel: "Iran wants to buy reactor fuel
November 4, 2009

Iran wants to buy nuclear material to run a research reactor in Tehran, said the Iranian envoy to the UN atomic agency, which last month proposed that Russia accept the country's low-enriched uranium and send it back as fuel.

Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh also said Iran is ready for talks on the proposal to buy fuel. He delivered a response on Oct. 29 to the International Atomic Energy Agency's plan for the shipment of Iran's uranium to Russia for further enrichment to reactor-grade fuel. Details of the document weren't released. The proposal followed IAEA-brokered talks between Iran and the U.S., Russia and France on refueling the reactor.

'We are ready for the next meeting in regards to the supply of fuel for Tehran's research reactor,' the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency cited Soltanieh as saying in Vienna, where the United Nations agency is based. 'We are ready to buy the fuel from any producer under the agency's supervision, in the same way that about 20 years ago we purchased it from Argentina with the agency's cooperation.'

Soltanieh's comment may indicate that the option of purchasing fuel from abroad is Iran's response to the IAEA proposal. Buying the fuel is Iran's preference instead of sending its nuclear stockpile to another country for further enrichment, Alaeddin Borujerdi, head of the parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, said last month.

Iran Wants Review

Earlier today, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran wants a review of the fuel-enrichment deal, Agence France- Presse reported. The IAEA should set up a 'technical commission to review and reconsider' the agreement, AFP cited Mottaki as telling a meeting of foreign ministers from developing Muslim nations in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Uranium enrichment is at the center of world powers' concern over Iran's nuclear program. The material can fuel a reactor or enriched to higher degrees form the core of a bomb.

Europe and the U.S. have expressed frustration at the slow progress of talks over Tehran's research reactor.

'We want to see a prompt response' on the proposal, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said at a news conference in Moscow today after meeting his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei 'has given another 48 hours to the Iranians to come up with a serious response and that is what we all want to see,' Miliband said.

Accused of Stalling

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was cited by AFP as saying, 'We are waiting for Iran to formally accept the proposition made by the IAEA. If the Iranian response is to stall, as it seems to be, we will not accept this.'

Iran's acceptance of the deal would help ease tensions between the Persian Gulf country and world powers over its nuclear program, which the U.S. and many of its allies say is aimed at developing atomic weapons. Iran says the program is purely civilian.

The fuel provided by Argentina for the medical-research reactor will run out by December 2010, Iranian officials have said."