Iran finds Baradei’s offer radioactive

Iran has yet again turned down a new offer by the U.N. nuclear watchdog requiring the country to ship its enriched uranium to neighboring Turkey as a way to ease U.S. and European concern over its nuclear ambitions, local media reported on Sunday.

“This proposal which was made by the chief of International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, a long time ago was rejected by Iranian authorities at the time,” a well-informed source told semi-official ISNA news agency.

“It seems the IAEA chief is trying to take advantage of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Turkey to gain media coverage on a closed issue,” the source said on condition of anonymity.

In a new offer to the Islamic Republic, the director-general of the Vienna-based IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Saturday that Iran's enriched uranium could be transferred to Turkey until Russia supplies Tehran with high-enriched uranium. The head of the IAEA said he proposed Turkey as a third-country destination because Iran did not agree on the Western suggestion that its enriched uranium be sent to Russia for further enrichment to reactor-grade fuel.

“It should work,” ElBaradei said in an interview on Public Broadcasting’s Charlie Rose television show. “Iran has a lot of trust in Turkey,” Bloomberg quoted ElBaradei as saying. The Obama administration would agree on this proposal because the U.S. is “very comfortable with Turkey,” said ElBaradei, who is ending his tenure as IAEA chief.

ElBaradei added that though he has not yet presented the idea to the Turkish government, he was confident that Ankara would accept the idea to hold the material in IAEA custody. However, the Turkish ambassador to the United Nations, Ertuğrul Apakan, said he was unaware of the plan, when asked about it Saturday.

Deal still on table:

Also on Sunday, a leading Iranian lawmaker said the U.N.-backed proposals from world powers are still on the table just a day after he suggested that Tehran could reject the deal.

“Our first option is to buy fuel of 20 percent (enrichment),” ISNA and Mehr news agencies quoted Alaeddin Borujerdi, the head of parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, as saying. "But if we cannot buy it we could make a limited exchange on condition that first we get fuel of 20 percent,” he added.

Borujerdi on Saturday said that Iran had decided to reject proposals from major powers for the supply of nuclear fuel, in what was seen as a serious setback for U.N.-brokered efforts to allay Western concerns about Tehran's atomic ambitions.

Uranium enrichment is at the center of concern over Iran’s nuclear program. The material can be enriched beyond reactor grade to form the core of a bomb.

In response to the U.S. and European plan, Iran indicated that it favors purchasing the fuel from abroad instead of sending its own stockpile. Its hesitation to sign on to the original proposal may lead to a new impasse.

Under the plan thrashed out in talks with France, Russia and the United States, Iran was to have shipped out most of its own stocks of low-enriched uranium in return for fuel to power a research reactor in Tehran.

The proposals were designed to assuage fears that Iran could otherwise divert some of its LEU and further enrich it to the much higher levels of purity required to make an atomic bomb.

Iran insists it nuclear program is aimed solely at generating electricity. The subject may come up this week in Turkey, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meets with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The hard-line Iranian president is set to attend a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC in Istanbul.

Ahead of his key visit to Tehran last month, Erdoğan accused Western powers of treating Iran unfairly regarding the nuclear program and referred to the Iranian president as a “friend.” In an interview with the British daily Guardian, Erdoğan also downplayed Western fears that Iran wants to build an atomic bomb as "gossip" and said a military strike against Iranian nuclear installations would be "crazy.” Tehran appreciated the Turkish prime minister’s stand on the Islamic Republic’s atomic program and also his clear stance against Israel.