Citing Options, Iran Rejects Uranium Deal, Diplomat Says

NYtimes
January 24, 2011

By STEVEN ERLANGER

PARIS — At the talks between Iran and six major powers in Istanbul over the weekend, Iran said it was “no longer interested” in a fuel-swap deal proposed by Washington and the others, a senior Western diplomat said Monday.
In Istanbul, the lead Western negotiator, Catherine Ashton, said only that her Iranian counterpart, Saeed Jalili, had refused to engage on the details of a revised offer to swap most of Iran’s low-enriched uranium for fuel rods, to power a declining Tehran reactor that produces medical isotopes.
After she laid out the proposals, Ms. Ashton, the head of the delegation of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, told journalists on Saturday, “I made it clear that they should consider them and come back to us.” Asked whether Mr. Jalili agreed to do so, she said that he had listened, but “He didn’t say, ‘Oh, O.K., I will.’ ”
American officials briefing reporters also described Mr. Jalili’s response in vague terms, saying that the proposals remained on the table and that the six powers were prepared to negotiate without preconditions.
But the senior Western diplomat, who would speak only anonymously, in keeping with diplomatic protocol, was more explicit, saying that Mr. Jalili told Ms. Ashton and the other powers that “Iran was no longer interested in the Tehran reactor” because it had found its own source of uranium and could produce the fuel itself.
Though Iran’s view may change, the Jalili statement in private to the group made talks seem less likely to resume anytime soon. The development is also likely to increase pressure on President Obama and others to ratchet up sanctions against Iran while they see whether Tehran changes its mind. Russia and China may be reluctant to go for another round of United Nations sanctions just a few months after the last.
The diplomat said that Mr. Jalili simply repeated his demands that the group make a statement “recognizing Iran’s right to enrich” and lifting existing sanctions immediately, as preconditions for further movement.
All six nations — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — rejected the preconditions and said that Iran must come into compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency before sanctions could be lifted.
While the West recognizes Iran’s right under the treaty to civilian nuclear energy, that does not mean an explicit right to enrichment, and the Security Council has repeatedly demanded that Iran stop enrichment, because of its deceptions about its nuclear program and its unwillingness to answer all questions from the nuclear agency.
The idea of the fuel swap was proposed by the United States in October 2009 as a confidence-building measure. A goal was to reduce Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium by 75 percent, to about 300 kilograms, which is less than what is required to build a single bomb. But now Iran has nearly three times the amount of low-enriched uranium it had then, as well as about 40 kilograms of uranium enriched to 19.75 percent, more than halfway to bomb grade.
The diplomat said that the proposal made to the Iranians was not specific on numbers, but that the intention was the same — to leave Iran with only about 300 kilograms of uranium enriched to between 3.5 percent and 5 percent.