Iran 'ready' to suspend uranium enrichment if assured of import

TEHRAN, July 29 (UPI) -- Iran's atomic energy chief Thursday offered to suspend an ongoing uranium enrichment program for its Tehran research reactor if the country was assured of supply of the fuel from other sources.

Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Director Ali Akbar Salehi told Iranian television news that if the supply of 20 percent enriched uranium was assured from sources outside Iran that would eliminate the need for Iran to go through the enrichment process for its Tehran reactor.

Uranium enrichment for use as fuel involves increasing the composition of uranium-235 in natural uranium by a process of separation of the isotopes. Natural uranium is 99.284 percent uranium-238, with uranium-235 comprising about 0.711 percent of its weight.

Salehi said, "We will not need to enrich to 20 percent if our needs are met" for fuel to power the reactor. He didn't say how he foresaw the supply needs being met.

"We started enriching to 20 percent to meet our needs," he said. We have no wish to draw on our reserves" of 3.5-percent enriched uranium to produce 20-percent enriched uranium, he added.

He didn't elaborate on the quantities of low-enriched uranium currently in Iranian government holdings.

Earlier Iranian government statements cited advances made by the country in producing highly enriched nuclear material, though those statements also left unclear the scale of enrichment carried out by Iran.

Weapons-grade uranium usually implies natural uranium that has been enriched to about 90 percent.

The Iranian comment, seen by analysts as a tentative offer of a "deal" followed the latest round of sanctions voted in by the U.N. Security Council and since followed by sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union and other states.

The sanctions followed last-ditch attempts at a compromise by Turkey and Brazil -- the leader in Latin America of uranium enrichment technology despite U.S. objections.

A deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey in May would have involved Iran sending out some 2,640 pounds of low-enriched uranium to Turkey and receiving in return high-enriched uranium supplied by France or Russia.

The deal won little support as Western powers opted instead for supporting tougher sanctions against Iran.

Salehi said in a telephone interview with the television channel Iran had repeatedly stated it conducted 20-percent enrichment "on a needs-only basis." If assured of alternative supplies, he said, Iran would readily review its uranium enrichment program.

Tehran insists that its nuclear program is for power generation and peaceful research. Western leaders remain suspicious of Iran's intentions.

Iran's nuclear power program was launched in the 1970s by the pro-West regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. European and U.S. nuclear industry suppliers actively competed for the lucrative contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, which were put on hold when the shah was toppled by the Islamic Republic in 1979.

The program was never abandoned and was revived after Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, resulting in an 8-year conflict and deaths of about a million people.