Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT — The head of the world’s atomic energy watchdog said Iran and world powers have until Friday to approve a proposed deal to transfer most of Iran’s nuclear material abroad to be reformatted for medical purposes.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei disclosed no details about the draft deal, hammered out over 2½ days of talks among Iranian, American, French and Russian diplomats in Vienna.
But he said Wednesday that it reflected a “balanced approach” that would help Iran fuel a medical research reactor for diagnosing and treating cancer while building confidence to resolve long-standing suspicions about the nature of its nuclear ambitions.
“Everybody who participated at the meeting was trying to help, trying to look to the future and not to the past, trying to heal the wounds that existed for many, many years,” ElBaradei told reporters.
Iran said it would take the proposal back to Tehran for consideration.
“We have had very constructive discussions, intensive discussions,” Iran’s envoy to the atomic energy agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said after the meeting, according to news agencies.
Iran’s drive to master nuclear technology has worried the West and Israel, the Middle East’s sole atomic power. Physicists say Iran has produced more than enough reactor-grade nuclear material to convert into a single bomb if it were to withdraw from the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expel inspectors and further refine its supply.
The revelation of a secret uranium enrichment facility in Qum last month added to suspicions that Iran has created an undeclared parallel nuclear program beyond the eyes of international inspectors.
Under the terms of the deal sketched out before this week’s meeting, Iran would send up to 80 percent of its supply of low-enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be further refined, and France, where it would be turned into plates for use in a medical research reactor.
Soltanieh said the U.S. played a key role in this week’s talks.
“Iran and the United States discussed technical cooperation about procurement of equipment for the Tehran [research] reactor under the aegis of IAEA,” he told Iran’s Fars news agency. “The U.S. agreed in principle to cooperate” with Iran.
