Iran, Turkey discuss option for Turkish uranium role

Turkish and Iranian officials held talks on a proposal from the chief of the United Nations nuclear agency for Iran’s enriched uranium to be sent to Turkey for processing into reactor fuel, an alternative to a plan for Russia to do the work.

The Turkish option, suggested on Nov. 6 by International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, was discussed by officials from the two countries on Monday at a meeting of leaders of Islamic nations in Istanbul, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said in an interview. Asked how Turkey views the plan, he said Turkey “always wants to help” to resolve disputes, without elaborating.

ElBaradei, in a Nov. 6 interview on Public Broadcasting’s Charlie Rose television show, said Turkey could accept Iran’s low-enriched uranium and ship it back as reactor-grade fuel as a way to ease U.S. and European concern that the Persian Gulf country aims to boost its supply of the material to the level needed for nuclear weapons.

Iran hasn’t accepted an earlier proposal, brokered by ElBaradei, for its uranium to be sent to Russia for further enrichment to reactor-grade fuel. The Islamic Republic also turned down ElBaradei’s offer to send its enriched uranium to Turkey.

The U.S. is willing to give Iran’s government more time to decide whether to accept the idea of shipping its uranium abroad for processing, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA said Monday at a briefing in Vienna.

 “We want to give some space to Iran to work through this,” Ambassador Glyn Davies said. “It’s a tough issue for them. We’re looking for an early, positive response.”

The material is needed for a Tehran medical research reactor that Iranian officials have said will run out of fuel within two years.

 “It’s an important deal because it has broader implications for how Iran and its neighbors” will “go into the future,” Davies said. The U.S. wants to “put the past behind us, the past of mistrust and missteps and 30 years of miscalculation and find a better way into the future.”

In response to the U.S. and European plan for Russia to process Iranian uranium, Iran indicated that it favors purchasing the fuel from abroad instead of sending its own stockpile out of the country.