Iran makes fuel swap offer

Iran submitted a plan to swap some of its enriched uranium for reactor fuel in a bid to to evade new United Nations sanctions and said the onus was on world powers to defuse tensions by accepting the deal.

But the proposal did not go beyond generalities already outlined last week and is unlikely to deter the US, Russia, China, Britain and France – the five permanent UN Security Council members – which have agreed on a draft fourth set of sanctions against Iran for refusing to give up uranium enrichment.

But Iran won support from Turkey and Brazil, which co-sponsored the fuel swap deal, and the International Atomic Energy Agency said diplomats from both countries joined with an Iranian representative in handing the proposal to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano yesterday.

Their presence at the handover “is a clear indication that the brotherly, friendly countries of Turkey and Brazil ... are supportive all the way through,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s chief IAEA delegate, said.

“We expect others to seize this unique opportunity,” he added, from the sidelines of a UN non-proliferation conference in New York.

He was alluding to the US, France and Russia – Tehran’s direct interlocutors in original fuel swap negotiations seven months ago – and more broadly to the security council.

The backing of Brazil and Turkey is important in blunting a sanctions push because they are elected security council members that carry weight among some of the eight other countries chosen for temporary council memberships.

They have signalled they will vote against new sanctions, which must be approved by 10 of the 15 council members.

Brazil and Turkey also are important for Washington.

Brazil is South America’s largest nation and has a dominant role on the continent, while Turkey, a key Nato ally and a traditional regional US mainstay, has moved to develop an increasingly independent voice.

Their support of Tehran is also a reflection of their own nuclear priorities. Brazil has a sophisticated nuclear programme that includes uranium enrichment, while diplomats say Turkey has implicitly expressed interest in domestic enrichment as part of any future large-scale civilian nuclear programme.

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defended the accord, suggesting it was a way to return to diplomacy instead of confrontation.

“We were not there to negotiate a nuclear deal,” he said on his weekly radio show. “We went there to try to convince Iran to accept a proposal made by Turkey and Brazil – to sit at the negotiating table.”

The deal would commit Iran to ship 2,640lbs of low-enriched uranium to Turkey, where it would be stored. In exchange, Iran would receive, within a year, higher-enriched fuel rods to be used in a US-built medical research reactor.

The proposal, as outlined in yesterday’s Iranian letter, mirrors a swap proposed in October in which Iran would have shipped the same amount of low-enriched uranium to Russia in exchange for higher-enriched material for its research reactor. That deal fell apart over Tehran’s insistence that the swap take place on Iranian soil.

The letter, signed by Ali Akhbar Salehi, an Iranian vice president and head of the country’s nuclear programme, indirectly blamed Tehran’s negotiating partners - the US, France and Russia – for the near seven-month delay, talking of a “stalemate due to unjustified conditions imposed by other parties”.

In March, the IAEA said Iran’s stockpile stood at around 4,600lbs, but it has probably grown to an estimated 5,000lbs, or more than twice the amount needed to produce enough material for a bomb, according to David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, which has tracked Iran for signs of covert proliferation.

From the West’s point of view, that destroys much of the incentive for an agreement – and Iran’s decision to continue its programme to enrich to near 20% poses an even greater hurdle.

Mr Soltanieh refused a direct answer when asked if Iran would continue higher enrichment – a sure red line for the West. But he indicated Tehran was holding to that plan, saying enrichment was his country’s “inalienable right ... that has nothing to do” with the fuel swap offer.