Iran’s senior lawmakers have rejected a UN-backed plan to ship much of the country’s uranium abroad for further enrichment.
The move raises further doubts about the likelihood that Tehran will approve the deal.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, who heads the parliament’s National Security Committee, told the semi-official ISNA news agency yesterday that the legislature was totally against shipping low enriched uranium abroad in return for nuclear fuel.
Kazem Jalali, another senior lawmaker, said there was no guarantee on receiving the fuel even if Iran sent its uranium.
The UN plan would require Iran to send 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium to Russia in one batch by the end of the year.
Iran has indicated that it may agree to send only “part” of its stockpile.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran’s arch-foe Israel is unhappy with talks between Tehran and the West, but he hoped the negotiations would continue, ISNA news agency reported yesterday.
The hardliner also said that Iran approaches the talks with Western powers on the Islamic republic’s nuclear ambitions with a sense of distrust, because of what he called their past “negative record.”
“We hope the negotiations continue and evil powers don’t indulge in mischief because the Zionist regime and other domineering powers are unhappy with the talks,” ISNA quoted Ahmadinejad as telling a local TV channel in northeast Iran late on Friday.
On Thursday, he said that “conditions were ready” for nuclear cooperation between Iran and world powers.
Tehran is also engaged in a separate dialogue with UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency over procuring nuclear fuel for a Tehran research reactor.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday called the UN-brokered plan “a positive first step.”
Speaking at a meeting with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, he hailed US President Barack Obama’s “ongoing efforts to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear military capability.”
“I think that the proposal that the president made in Geneva to have Iran withdraw its enriched uranium, or a good portion of it, outside Iran is a positive first step in that direction,” Netanyahu said. “I support and appreciate the president’s ongoing efforts to unite the international community to address the challenge of Iran’s attempts to become a nuclear military power.”
The UN-drafted plan envisages sending Iran’s low-enriched uranium abroad for converting into fuel for the Tehran reactor.
Ahmadinejad, however, said Iran still distrusted in Western powers in the talks.
“The government, like all Iranian people, looks at the negotiations with no trust, given the negative record of Western powers, but realities make them interact with Iranian people,” he said.
“Today the Westerners know that without interaction with Iran, they cannot manage the world because Iran ... manages the world’s public opinion,” he said.
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