Global Security Newswire

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday said his country was willing to ship much of its low-enriched uranium to other countries for further refinement, a key principle of a U.N. proposal aimed at easing international concerns that the Middle Eastern state could produce material for a nuclear weapon, Reuters reported (see GSN, Feb. 2).

Tehran has for months ruled out a bulk uranium transfer, reportedly going as far as rejecting the plan in a communication with the International Atomic Energy Agency (see GSN, Jan. 20). Under the proposal, Russia and France would enrich a large portion of Iran's stockpiled uranium to the 20 percent level required for use at a medical research reactor in Tehran, deferring Iran's ability to fuel a bomb long enough to negotiate a longer-term solution to the dispute over its nuclear capabilities. The United States and other Western powers doubt Iran's assertions that its nuclear intentions are strictly peaceful.

"We have no problem sending our enriched uranium abroad," Ahmadinejad said on Iranian television. "We say: we will give you our 3.5 percent enriched uranium and will get the fuel. It may take four to five months until we get the fuel.

"If we send our enriched uranium abroad and then they do not give us the 20 percent enriched fuel for our reactor, we are capable of producing it inside Iran," he said (Parisa Hafezi, Reuters, Feb. 2).

Ahmadinejad also called for nuclear energy assistance from Western powers, the Associated Press reported. "They want to cooperate? OK, we cooperate. We do not have any problem. Let them build 20 nuclear power plants. Is there a problem? Russia, France and the U.S., come and build," he said (Nasser Karimi, Associated Press I/Washington Post, Feb. 2).

It was uncertain whether Ahmadinejad's statement marked an official shift in policy. All Iranian political decisions must receive approval from the nation's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Hafezi, Reuters).

"There is a still a deal on the table. The question is: Is he prepared to say yes," U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, referring to the U.N. proposal formulated by the International Atomic Energy Agency last October.

When Iranian diplomats discussed a bulk uranium transfer arrangement with U.S. officials last year, "they said yes, and then they said no," Crowley noted, according to the Washington Post.

The spokesman said he was "unaware of a formal [Iranian] response" to the U.N. nuclear watchdog stating that Tehran had changed its position on the agency's proposal.

"If Mr. Ahmadinejad's comments reflect an updated Iranian position, we look forward to Iran informing the IAEA," White House spokesman Mike Hammer said (Erdbrink/Kessler, Washington Post, Feb. 3).

"There has been some discussion about details, but the deal is the deal and the Iranians need only to tell the IAEA they are prepared to take it, and we can move forward from there," said State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid, according to the Los Angeles Times (Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 2).

Russia today commended Iran's stated willingness to accept the bulk uranium transfer, Agence France-Presse reported.

"If Iran is ready to come back to the original agreement we can only welcome it," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Feb. 3).

Meanwhile, the United States yesterday called for further discussion of new sanctions against Iran, AFP reported. Delegates from China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States could hold another meeting on the matter "in the next week or so," Crowley said.

U.S. officials have stated "very forcefully to China that this is an issue ... that's important to them, just as much as it's important to us and to others in the region," he added. Beijing, a permanent U.N. Security Council member with the power to veto decisions by the body, has resisted calls for additional economic penalties targeting Iran over its nuclear program.

"We do not have the same view of the urgency of the situation. We probably do not, at this point, have the same view regarding the ... steps that we think are ... necessary at this particular time. But that's why we're having this ongoing engagement, as we did in New York recently, as we will in the upcoming days, you know, when our P-5+1 political directors have a chance to consult again," Crowley said (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, Feb. 2).

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday said Iran would face additional punitive measures if it fails to work toward resolving the nuclear dispute, the BBC reported.

"What we now, I think, have to do is accept that if Iran will not make some indication that it will take action that we have got to proceed with sanctions," Brown said. "I'm sorry that it has come to that, but I think it's essential that the international community shows that it has strength in this matter by imposing these sanctions" (BBC News, Feb. 2).

China could face intense pressure from the other four permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany not to block a new Iran sanctions resolution, analysts told AP.

"I expect a very tough set of negotiations behind closed doors," said Brookings Institution fellow Kenneth Lieberthal. "They are reluctant players but not unmovable."

Beijing would probably accept new sanctions, but it would work to water down the measures, added Douglas Paal, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Steven Hurst, Associated Press II, Feb. 3).

Diplomats, though, warned that Ahmadinejad's statement of support for the U.N. uranium transfer proposal could be aimed at turning China against new penalties (Erdbrink/Kessler, Washington Post).

Elsewhere, U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair yesterday warned U.S. lawmakers "that Iran is technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon in the next few years if it chooses to do so," the Financial Times reported.

Although further economic penalties against the country would have "a negative impact on Iran's recovery from its current slowdown," the nation has already taken measures to skirt current sanctions and additional measures that could follow, he said (Financial Times, Feb. 3).

"We continue to judge Iran's nuclear decision-making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran," Blair added, according to AFP.

"Iran has made contingency plans for dealing with future additional international sanctions by identifying potential alternative suppliers of gasoline -- including China and Venezuela," he said. "Tehran also has resorted to doing business with small, non-Western banks and dealing in non-U.S. currency for many financial transactions."

In addition, anti-government news sources have indicated the country was illicitly trafficking in crude oil "as a way of both skirting and profiting from sanctions," he said (Agence France-Presse III/Google News, Feb. 2).

Blair said that since the closing months of 2007, Iran has nearly increased the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges installed at its Natanz complex from roughly 3,000 to more than 8,000, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Although Iran has generated nearly 4,000 pounds of low-enriched uranium since that time, technical issues are currently preventing the country from simultaneously operating more than around half of the centrifuges at Natanz, he said.

The true purpose behind Iran's recently disclosed and still-unfinished Qum uranium enrichment site remains "unclear to us," Blair said (Xinhua News Agency, Feb. 3).