West agrees to wait over nuclear proposal: Iran
Dozens of supporters of the Iranian opposition demonstrate on Saturday in Paris. Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said on Friday that he was ready to sacrifice his life in his campaign for reform after the disputed June re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Photo: AFP
Iran said yesterday the West had agreed to wait two months on a proposal to exchange enriched uranium and that a month has now passed, reiterating that if there is no deal it will produce its own fuel for a nuclear reactor.
"Based on the talks Iran had with the relevant parties, it was decided to provide the Tehran reactor with the necessary fuel (from outside), and if not then we will produce it," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted by news agencies as saying.
"Then the (negotiating) parties asked the Islamic republic to give them two months to reach an understanding and we accepted that," he added.
"Now one month of that waiting period is over and one month is left. So if it does not materialise (the provision of fuel) then Iran will take the necessary decision," Mehmanparast said.
He spoke a day after Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki gave the West a one-month "ultimatum" to accept a uranium swap.
"The international community has just one month left to decide" whether or not it will accept Iran's conditions, otherwise "Tehran will enrich uranium to a higher level," he was quoted by the state television as saying.
"This is an ultimatum," Mottaki added.
Iran, which rejected a December 31 deadline to accept a UN-brokered deal, said on Tuesday it is ready to swap abroad its low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel, insisting however that the exchange should happen in stages.
Tehran has rejected a proposal by UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ship out most of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium for further processing by Russia and France into fuel for the research reactor.
Last month Mottaki said Iran was open to exchanging uranium on Turkish soil. The IAEA has ruled out a swap taking place in Iran itself.
World powers have been pushing for Iran to accept the UN-brokered deal and are also mulling fresh UN sanctions after Tehran dismissed the year-end deadline.
The United States, Israel, and other world powers suspect Tehran is making an atomic bomb under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme. Iran denies the charge.
And the administration of US President Barack Obama believes domestic unrest and signs of unexpected trouble in Iran's nuclear programme make the country's leaders particularly vulnerable to strong and immediate new sanctions, The New York Times reported late Saturday.
Citing unnamed officials, the newspaper said the long-discussed sanctions proposal comes as the administration has completed a fresh review of Iran's nuclear progress.
Obama's strategists believe Iran's top political and military leaders were distracted in recent months by turmoil in the streets and political infighting, and that their drive to produce nuclear fuel appears to have faltered, the report said.
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