Wednesday October 21, 2009

Iran, 3 powers have till Friday to OK nuclear deal

By Mark Heinrich and Sylvia Westall

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog presented on Wednesday a draft deal to Iran and three world powers for approval within two days to reduce Tehran's stockpile of enriched uranium, seen by the West as a nuclear weapons risk.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei briefs the media after a meeting with EU and U.S. Diplomats on the Iranian nuclear issue in Vienna October 21, 2009. (REUTERS/Herwig Prammer)

Iran declined to say if it would endorse the plan, which Western diplomats said would require Tehran to send 1.2 tonnes of its known 1.5-tonne reserve of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia and France by the end of the year. The material would be converted into fuel for a nuclear medicine facility in Tehran.

Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency hinted that his government may seek amendments.

Diplomats suggested this could jeopardise the deal if they overstepped "red lines" set to create confidence that Tehran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons option. However, an outright rejection seemed less likely as this could revive Western pressure for harsher U.N. sanctions on Iran.

"We have to thoroughly study this text and ... come back and reflect our opinion and suggestions or comments in order to have an amicable solution at the end of the day," Iranian Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters. "We welcome this event; we are fully cooperating."

Three days of talks in Vienna failed to finalise the deal as the IAEA and the three powers -- France, Russia and the United States -- had wanted. Western diplomats said this was because Iran raised many questions about fundamental aspects of the plan which it had already agreed to in principle.

Iran has resorted to time-buying manoeuvres in the past, including withholding clear answers to offers in talks, while seeking to accelerate its secretive enrichment programme.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei announced the draft deal after the Vienna talks. "I have circulated a draft agreement that in my judgment reflects a balanced approach to how to move forward. The deadline for the parties to give, I hope, an affirmative action is Friday," he told reporters.

"I cross my fingers that by Friday we have an OK by all the parties concerned," he said, betraying widespread uncertainty over whether Iran would make a concrete commitment.

The draft plan would reduce the high risk cited by the West of Iran, under suspicion over nuclear secrecy and restrictions on U.N. inspections, covertly refining LEU to the high level of purity suitable for nuclear warheads.

CLINTON SEEKS FAST ACTION BY IRAN

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said "prompt action" was needed to turn the LEU blueprint into reality. "The door is open to a better future for Iran, but the process of engagement cannot be open-ended. We are not prepared to talk just for the sake of talking," she said in a speech in Washington.

Jacques Audibert, the French foreign ministry's political director, said ElBaradei's draft suited France and the other powers, and Iran had two days "to let us know if it suits them".

He said on France 24 television that the plan, if carried out, would "lower the tensions" over Iran's nuclear campaign.

Iran, which says its nuclear energy programme is only for generating electricity, has already accumulated enough LEU for one bomb if it were further enriched.

Iran's enrichment programme has approached an industrial scale over the past year, but it has no operating nuclear power plants that would use low-enriched uranium.

Tehran approved the LEU scheme in principle in talks with six world powers in Geneva on Oct. 1. Then it appeared to row back from it, declaring it could enrich uranium to higher levels itself if terms of the deal proved unacceptable.

The plan envisages Russia refining Iran's 5-percent enriched uranium up to 19.7 percent and France processing the material into fuel rods to power the Tehran reactor.

The 1960s-era reactor's fuel stock, provided by Argentina in 1993, is expected to run out in about a year. U.N. sanctions imposed over Iran's refusal to halt enrichment prohibit trade in sensitive nuclear materials with Tehran.

"Everybody is aware (this) transaction is a very important confidence-building measure that can defuse a crisis going on for a number of years, and open space for (further) negotiations" on other outstanding disputes, ElBaradei said.

He was referring to longstanding U.N. Security Council and IAEA demands on Iran to curb enrichment and permit wider ranging inspections to verify it is not hiding more proliferation-prone nuclear activity. Last month, Iran revealed a second enrichment site under construction since 2006 but not declared to the IAEA.

The Vienna talks were the first follow-through on understandings struck in Geneva. Iran also agreed there to grant IAEA inspectors access to the hidden enrichment site on Oct. 25.

(Additional reporting by Crispian Balmer in Paris and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Editing by Samia Nakhoul, Mark Trevelyan and David Stamp)

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