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Iran, 3 powers have till Fri. to OK nuke deal
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-22 10:22

Iran, 3 powers have till Fri. to OK nuke deal
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waves as he waits to start an official meeting in Tehran September 29, 2009. [Agencies]

Iran, which says its nuclear programme is only for producing electricity, has already amassed enough LEU for one bomb if it were further enriched. Iran has no nuclear power plants that would use LEU, raising Western suspicions about its intentions.

ElBaradei's plan would only push back the point when Iran could "weaponise" LEU by about a year, the time it would need to supplant the 1.2 tonnes at its current rate of enrichment, US proliferation analyst David Albright said.

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Iran rules out curbing enrichment as an infringement on its "legal and obvious" right to civilian nuclear energy.

World powers seeking a lasting solution to the standoff with Iran will press it for a nuclear freeze at further talks at senior foreign ministry level planned soon, with trade rewards promised if Tehran fully suspends enrichment.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said "prompt action" by Iran was needed to turn the LEU blueprint into reality. "The door is open to a better future for Iran, but the process of engagement cannot be open-ended," she said in a speech.

US and French officials indicated their governments would sign off on the plan.

Tehran tentatively approved the scheme in high-level talks with six world powers in Geneva on October 1. Then it appeared to row back from it, declaring it could enrich uranium to higher levels itself if terms of the deal proved unacceptable.

The arrangement envisages Russia refining Iran's 5-percent enriched uranium up to 19.7 percent and France processing the material into fuel rods to power the old, 1960s-era reactor.

Its fuel stock, imported in the early 1990s, is expected to run out in about a year. Sanctions imposed on Iran since 2006 ban it from trading for sensitive nuclear materials.

"Everybody is aware (this) transaction is a very important confidence-building measure that can defuse a crisis going on for a number of years, and open space for (further) negotiations" on other outstanding disputes, ElBaradei said.

He was referring to longstanding UN Security Council and IAEA demands on Iran to halt enrichment and permit wider ranging inspections to verify it is not hiding more proliferation-prone nuclear activity. Last month, Iran revealed a second enrichment site under construction since 2006 but not declared to the IAEA.

Iran has agreed to open the site to inspections on October 25.

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