In A Surprise Move Iran Agrees To Send Processed Nuclear Materials To Russia and France; President Obama's Diplomatic Initiative May Be Working

Iran Agrees to Send Enriched Uranium to Russia

Pool photograph by Dominic Favre
European Union foreign policy Chief Javier Solana, left, with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili as they arrive for talks over Iran's nuclear ambitions at a villa in Genthod, near Geneva, on Thursday.
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By STEVEN ERLANGER and MARK LANDLER
Published: October 1, 2009
GENEVA — Iran agreed on Thursday in talks with the United States and other major powers to open its newly revealed uranium enrichment plant near Qum to international inspection in the next two weeks and to send most of its openly declared enriched uranium outside Iran to be turned into fuel for a small reactor that produces medical isotopes, senior American and other Western officials said.

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Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, said in Tehran that he was heading for talks in Geneva with a “positive approach.”

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Iran’s agreement in principle to export most of its enriched uranium for processing — if it happens — would represent a major accomplishment for the West, reducing Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon quickly and buying more time for negotiations to bear fruit.

If Iran has secret stockpiles of enriched uranium, however, the accomplishment would be hollow, a senior American official conceded.

The officials described the long day of talks here with Iran, the first such discussions in which the United States has participated fully, as a modest success on a long and complicated road. Iran had at least finally engaged with the big powers on its nuclear program after more than a year and had agreed to some tangible, confidence-building steps before another meeting with the same participants before the end of this month.

But despite the relatively promising outcome, the Obama administration was at pains to strike a cautious tone, given Iran’s history of duplicity, its crackdown on its own people after the tainted June presidential elections and President Obama’s concern about being perceived as naïve or susceptible to a policy of Iranian delays.

Mr. Obama, speaking in Washington, called the talks “constructive,” but warned Tehran that he was prepared to move quickly to more stringent sanctions if negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions dragged on.

“We’re not interested in talking for the sake of talking,” Mr. Obama told reporters in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room. “If Iran does not take steps in the near future to live up to its obligations, then the United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely.”

France and Britain have spoken of December as an informal deadline for Iran to negotiate seriously about stopping enrichment and cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency. American officials say that timeline is “about right,” but Iran continues to insist that it has the right to enrich uranium for what it calls a purely civilian program.

Mr. Obama said Tehran must allow international inspectors into the site near Qum within the next two weeks, a timeline Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, agreed to here.

The atomic energy agency’s director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, will travel to Tehran this weekend to discuss the details and timing of the inspections, officials said. But the Americans also want Iran to cooperate with the inspectors and make personnel and documents about the site near Qum available.

Besides the scheduling of another meeting, the main practical accomplishment on Thursday was Iran’s agreement in principle — to be worked out by experts later this month in Vienna — to ship what American officials called “most” of its declared stockpile of lightly enriched uranium to Russia and France to be turned into nuclear fuel.

While American officials refused to specify the amount, other Western officials said it could be 1,200 kilograms, or more than 2,600 pounds, of enriched uranium, which could be as much as 75 percent of Iran’s declared stockpile. While there may be hidden stocks of enriched uranium, such a transfer, if it occurs, “buys some time” for further negotiations, a senior American official said.

Given the assessment that Iran has made enough low-enriched uranium to produce at least one nuclear weapon at some time in the future, a sharp reduction in its stockpile would be “a confidence-building measure to alleviate tensions and buy us some diplomatic space,” the official said.

Israel, the nation most concerned about a nuclear-armed Iran, has been informed of the discussions, another American official said.

Iran’s uranium is enriched to about 3.5 to 5 percent, the officials said; the Tehran reactor for making medical isotopes, last powered by Argentine-made fuel in 1993, needs uranium enriched to 19.75 percent, still far below weapons grade. And that uranium must then be fabricated into metal rods for the reactor.

Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it needed fuel for the Tehran reactor before December 2010. Washington, with its allies, pushed the agency to offer Iran the fuel, but made from Iran’s own enriched uranium as a feedstock. Mr. Jalili agreed to that in principle on Thursday.

The talks were between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — as well as Germany, and led by the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana.

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Steven Erlanger reported from Geneva, and Mark Landler from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Helene Cooper from Washington, Sharon Otterman and William J. Broad from New York, and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.

RecommendNext Article in World (2 of 45) »A version of this article appeared in print on October 2, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.