WarSclerotic

FT.com / Middle East – Iran nuclear talks end without a deal.

Negotiations between Iran and three world powers over its nuclear programme broke up in Vienna on Wednesday with western diplomats suggesting that Tehran was almost certain to reject a proposal to reduce significantly its current stockpile of enriched uranium.

After two days of talks in Vienna, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told journalists he had drawn up a draft text on the proposal that must be approved by Iran and the three other states – the US, France and Russia – by Friday. If Tehran does not agree to the proposal, it is likely to be withdrawn.

he draft text states that Iran should reduce its current stockpile of low enriched uranium by about 85 per cent by the end of this year, transferring the fuel to France and Russia. Both those countries, in turn, would give Iran fuel that can be used to create medical isotopes for cancer treatment.

Iran’s delegation chief said the Vienna talks had been constructive but did not say whether the Iranian leadership would embrace the draft accord.

“We are fully cooperating,” said Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s IAEA ambassador. ”[But] we have to thoroughly study this text and … come back and reflect our opinion and suggestions or comments in order to have an amicable solution at the end of the day.”

Iran had accepted the proposal “in principle” after an earlier meeting on October 1. However, western diplomats said that throughout the two days of talks in Vienna, Iran had repeatedly blocked the suggestion that it should remove the fuel at the speed and in the quantities being demanded by the US and France.

“Iran came to the talks highly resistant to the offer,” a western diplomat told the Financial Times. “Its delegation came up with a series of proposals about how it might transfer less of the fuel than the US and France are proposing or about removing it at a later date or keeping it in Iran.

“They were given lots of opportunities to come back and change their position but refused to do so.”

The same diplomat was pessimistic that Iran would accept the proposal drafted by the IAEA. “They have effectively been rejecting the proposal for the last two days in Vienna,” said the diplomat. “It is very hard to imagine that within 48 hours they will turn round and accept it.”

This entry was posted on October 21, 2009 at 2:43 PM and is filed under Iran / Israel War. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.