Iran plans to hold talks with all 15 members of the UN Security Council in an effort to break the deadlock over a possible nuclear fuel deal, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Sunday.
“In the coming days, we have plans to have direct talks with 14 members of the Security Council and one [set of] indirect talks with a member,” he said, in reference to Washington, which does not have diplomatic ties with Tehran.
“The talks will focus on the fuel exchange [deal]. They will be conducted by Iran’s missions in those countries,” he told a press conference after a two-day nuclear disarmament conference hosted by Tehran.
A UN-drafted deal in October last year to supply nuclear fuel for a Tehran research reactor by shipping out Iran’s low-enriched uranium in return for higher-grade nuclear fuel produced by Russia and France has hit an impasse.
The two groups are now at loggerheads as Iran insists it will only accept a simultaneous exchange that takes place inside the Islamic republic, a condition rejected by the world powers.
Washington is leading global efforts to impose a fourth set of UN sanctions on Iran, in a bid to halt Tehran’s nuclear program which it suspects masks a weapons drive, a charge denied by Iran.
While the US, Britain and France have shown readiness for new sanctions, the other two UN veto-wielding members — Russia and China — have been hesitant to back such a proposal.
Mottaki said a deal was still possible.
“In principle the issue of fuel exchange has been agreed upon ... We think ... details could be worked out,” he said, adding that the deal could be operational “within two weeks.”
Tensions rose further after Washington last week unveiled its new nuclear policy, which officials in Tehran say poses a “nuclear threat” against their country.
Mottaki said any attack against Iran would be like “playing with fire.”
“Those who think of attacking Iran are playing with fire. They will very well realize the consequences of their actions,” English-language Press TV quoted him as saying at a press conference. “We don’t believe they will attack. We do not see they have the capacity on the ground.”
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speaking on Sunday dismissed a report in the New York Times that a memo he sent to the White House in January about Iran’s nuclear program was intended as a “wake-up call” to the administration of US President Barack Obama.
“The New York Times sources who revealed my January memo to the National Security Advisor mischaracterized its purpose and content,” a statement from Gates said.
It was simply a policy document setting out defense planning as the Obama administration sought to begin applying more pressure on Iran over its suspect nuclear activities, he said.
“The memo was not intended as a ‘wake-up call’ or received as such by the president’s national security team,” Gates said. “Rather, it presented a number of questions and proposals intended to contribute to an orderly and timely decision-making process.”
Earlier on Sunday, in his closing remarks at the Tehran nuclear conference, Mottaki said the forum had rejected any attack on civilian atomic sites as a “violation of international laws.”
The Tehran conference discussed the need to “move toward regions stripped of weapons of mass destruction, especially in the Middle East” and for Israel to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he said.
Israel, which has never ruled out attacking Iran’s controversial nuclear sites, is widely believed to be the Middle East’s sole but undeclared nuclear weapons power.
On Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei branded the US the world’s “only atomic criminal,” while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Washington to be “suspended” from the UN nuclear watchdog.
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