A senior Iranian official said on Thursday a South African proposal to ease a diplomatic crisis over Iran’s nuclear activities was unlikely to be adopted.
The Financial Times newspaper reported that the proposal would involve exporting output from Iran’s recently restarted uranium conversion plant.
But a senior Iranian official involved in talks with the European Union said the idea was unlikely to be implemented.
“This is not going to happen. Iran wants to have nuclear fuel cycle,” the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Iran resumed activities at the Isfahan uranium conversion plant on Monday. Despite U.S. and EU calls that it not resume work there, Tehran on Wednesday broke all the U.N. seals and made the facility fully operational.
The Financial Times said the proposal would involve shipping South African uranium yellowcake to Iran for conversion into uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) which would then be shipped back to South Africa for enriching into nuclear fuel.
The newspaper said the proposal was designed to allay fears that Tehran could use its facilities to develop nuclear weapons.
Ali Aghamohammadi, spokesman for Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said the idea, previously suggested by Russia, was part of Iran’s proposals package to France, Britain and Germany to break the country’s nuclear impasse.
“The EU welcomed the proposal which was suggested by Iran as a confidence-building measure,” Aghamohammadi told Reuters.
But Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, said the proposal was “one among many ideas that have not been discussed yet".
More: za.today.reuters.com
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