Agence France-Presse,
Vienna: Russia is proposing a package that would allow Iran eventually to do small-scale uranium enrichment but not obtain the technology that can be used to make nuclear weapons, diplomats told AFP Monday.
But one diplomat said the package is currently unacceptable to both the United States and European nations, which want Iran to give up uranium enrichment, and to Iran, since it would call for a full suspension of enrichment during talks, a diplomat said.
An Iranian diplomat in Vienna said the Russians have not called for a short-term suspension of research activities.
But Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, appeared to contradict that, saying the Moscow offer was subject to conditions, including “Iran's resumption of a suspension (of uranium enrichment).”
“Of course the proposal to create a joint enterprise in Russia is on the table for negotiation,” Lavrov said during a visit Monday to Ottowa, according to Interfax news agency.
In Vienna, another diplomat said that if Europeans accepted Iranian research activities, Iran would be “ready to delay moving ahead on industrial enrichment”.
The Russian plan, which Lavrov was to discuss later Monday with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington, was said by the Vienna diplomats to involve:
— Iran suspending for a short time all enrichment activities, including small-scale research it began in February.
— Iran agreeing to ratify the Additional Protocol of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which allows for wider inspections by the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency.
— Iran agreeing to a long-term suspension of industrial-level enrichment activities and having uranium enriched instead in Russia, where the Islamic republic would not acquire the technology that is considered a “break-out capacity” for making atom bombs.
— Having the IAEA determine what would be a safe, non-proliferation level of small-scale enrichment — that is, how many centrifuge machines could be used.
Centrifuges arranged in series called cascades spin uranium gas to distill out uranium enriched with higher levels of the U-235 isotope.
Nuclear power reactors normally use uranium enriched to 3-5 percent while bombs require uranium enriched to over 90 percent.
Iran is already running a 10-centrifuge cascade at a facility in Natanz and has tested a 20-centrifuge cascade, neither of which could produce highly enriched uranium or even large amounts of low enriched uranium.
The Russians are willing to have the Iranian run a pilot enrichment project of 164 centrifuges but the Iranians want to run 3,000 centrifuges, diplomats said.
“The Iranians do not accept limiting themselves to 20 centrifuges,” a diplomat said.
“The Americans do not accept 164,” the diplomat added, in comments confirmed by other diplomats, who all asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
“Running 20 centrifuges would not allow the Iranians to master the technology. 164 is quite a difference,” one diplomat said.
A US State Department official told reporters in Vienna Monday that the United States would not accept Iran doing any enrichment at all.
Industrial levels of enrichment involve thousands of centrifuges and, properly configured, they can make enough highly enriched uranium per year for many atom bombs.
The Iranians want to install over 50,000 centrifuges in Natanz.
