World awaits Iran uranium decision

23 October 2009 02:24pm

The US and its allies are hoping to secure Iran's approval for a proposed deal that would ship most of the country's uranium abroad for enrichment and ease Western fears about Iran's potential to make a nuclear weapon.

Approval of the draft agreement would be a key victory for President Barack Obama, who has stepped up diplomatic engagement with Iran since he took office in January and faulted the Bush administration for refusing to talk to US adversaries.

Russia and France, which are both involved in the deal, backed it on Friday. US officials have also expressed support, but Iran's endorsement is far from certain.

Iran's deputy parliament speaker, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, dismissed the plan on Thursday, the first public reaction in Tehran to the proposal, which calls for shipping low-enriched uranium to Russia for further enrichment to a level suitable as fuel for a research reactor - but not for nuclear weapons.

Iran's parliament will not vote on the draft plan, and Bahonar does not speak for the government, which is to decide the matter. But it's unclear if his comments reflect high-level resistance to the deal or the opinions of some influential politicians in Iran.

The proposal may meet resistance by some Iranian leaders because it weakens Iran's control over its stockpiles of nuclear fuel and could be perceived as a concession to the US, which suspects Iran is using its nuclear programme as a way to covertly develop weapons - an allegation denied by Tehran.

The draft agreement was formalised on Wednesday after three days of talks in Vienna between Iran and world powers, including the US. The talks followed a similar meeting at the beginning of October in Geneva that included the highest-level bilateral contact between the US and Iran in years.

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, said after the completion of the Vienna talks that he hoped Iran and its three interlocutors - the US, Russia and France - would approve the plan by Friday.

Russia was the first to heed that call, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying he hopes the other nations involved will follow in endorsing the agreement sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

France followed suit, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero saying the deal "is amenable to France."

© The Press Association