Tehran welcomes nuclear deal, with alterations

Iran’s foreign minister says he hopes that an agreement on the nuclear fuel proposal will soon be reached, but with the changes that Tehran seeks.

Manouchehr Mottaki’s Friday message came just days after Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signaled that his country was ready to accept a deal, in what was seen as a possible breakthrough.

“The most important point is the political will. Personally I feel this will is there,” Mottaki said during a late-night debate with his Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt at the Munich Security Conference.

“I personally believe that we have created favorable conditions for such an exchange in the not very distant future,” he said, noting that he believed the diplomatic atmosphere had improved recently.

The agreement proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would see Iran ship its low-enriched uranium abroad for further processing, all for it to be returned for use in the Tehran medical reactor, which produces medicine for cancer treatment.

The Iranian foreign minister warned that his country would not accept the timeline proposed in the draft, which would require Iran to export its uranium and wait for up to a year before receiving the enriched fuel.

“There must be a guarantee for both sides that this (low-enriched uranium) will be given for sure and (highly-enriched uranium) will be given back for sure, this mechanism makes it possible to reach a compromise,” he said.

The best way to guarantee that all stages of the deal would be carried out according to the agreement would be for the supplier to start enriching uranium feedstock now, so that the exchange could take place simultaneously in some months’ time, he said.

Iran has asked for guarantees since the deal was drafted in October. Western powers, however, have so far refused to appease Tehran’s concerns, forcing a break-off in negotiations.

The West’s two-edged stance on nuclear activity has not helped the negotiations either, with Iran constantly complaining that the unfair privilege that a certain few states have at the UN Security Council has allowed them to disregard Iran’s legal rights.

Tehran says the Security Council has issued unfair resolutions against its civil nuclear program, in contradiction with UN nuclear watchdog regulations that reserve a right for all countries to enrich uranium as part of a peaceful program.

It also says that those unwarranted powers have given the West the leverage to turn a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear proliferation and its other violations.

During the Friday meeting, Mottaki once again raised that argument, criticizing Europe for showing opposition to Iran’s civil nuclear program, while imposing no sanctions on Israel for its development of nuclear weapons.

“It is the recognized right of Iran to enjoy a peaceful nuclear program,” he said.