US calls Tehran declaration unrealistic

Washington says the Tehran declaration fails to address international concerns, hours before the UN Security Council made a decision on new sanctions against Iran.

“It does not address the underlying issue of iran’s non-compliance with its non-proliferation obligations,” argued the US ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency Ambassador (IAEA), Glyn Davies, on Wednesday.

“It also does not take into account Iran’s production or retention of nearly 20 percent enriched uranium and it asserts a right for Iran to engage in enrichment activities,” continued the US official.

He further added that the declaration sets an “unrealistic timeline” for the delivery of fuel rods, explaining that no country is capable of providing the assemblies in their entirety within a single year.

Davies made the comments after the Vienna group, which is comprised of the United States, France and Russia, rejected an Iranian proposal to ship domestic low-enriched uranium to Turkey in return for nuclear fuel for a research reactor in Tehran.

Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh confirmed the receipt of the Vienna Group’s response during a private meeting with the agency’s Director General Yukiya Amano.

The UN Security Council is expected to adopt a fourth set of sanctions against Iran over its uranium enrichment activities — which has been portrayed as a threat in the West despite repeated assurances from the IAEA on the non-diversion of nuclear material in the country.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned that he will end negotiations on his country’s nuclear program in the event of fresh UNSC sanctions.

President Ahmadinejad also added that the new round of sanctions is unlikely to have any effect on the country’s nuclear stance just like the first three rounds.