The top diplomats of Iran, Brazil and Turkey were to discuss nuclear fuel supplies for Tehran in Istanbul yesterday, in the first such gathering since the Islamic republic was slapped with new sanctions.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Manouchehr Mottaki was to meet his Brazilian and Turkish counterparts, Celso Amorim and Ahmet Davutoglu, “to discuss ... the Tehran Declaration about the fuel swap,” his ministry’s spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.
The Istanbul meeting would be the first between the three sides since the UN Security Council imposed a fourth set of sanctions against Iran on June 9 over its controversial nuclear drive.
Iran, Brazil and Turkey reached the so-called Tehran Declaration on May 17.
Hailed by the three, the declaration stipulates Iran is ready to send 1,200kg of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Turkey to be supplied at a later date with high-enriched uranium by Russia and France.
However, it was immediately cold-shouldered by world powers, which went ahead and backed the fresh UN sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt its sensitive uranium enrichment program.
The deal was a counterproposal by Iran to a plan in October last year drafted by the UN atomic watchdog in Vienna that envisaged sending 1,200kg of Iran’s LEU in exchange of high-enriched uranium to be used at a Tehran research reactor.
The International Atomic Energy Agency drafted its proposal in collaboration with Russia, France and the US, the trio since known as the Vienna group.
The group raised several questions regarding the Tehran Declaration and Iran’s atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Saturday that Tehran was prepared to answer them.
“A response has been prepared and in the next two or three days it will be delivered to the Vienna group,” Salehi was quoted as saying by ISNA.
He said Iran’s response was a “general response, but the technical response to their questions will be discussed probably in a meeting with the Vienna group.”
Salehi did not specify when such a meeting would take place.
Iran meanwhile is expected to commence talks with the six world powers — Britain, China, France, Russia, the US and Germany — concerning its overall nuclear program from September.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, under whose leadership Iran has aggressively pursued the nuclear program, has ordered a freeze on these talks until the end of next month.
The latest UN sanctions were followed by unilateral punitive measures from Washington and on Thursday the EU agreed on a package of punitive measures targeting Iran’s energy sector.
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