And the Government Announces Readiness to Trade Uranium

As the head of Iran’s Expediency Council called on the Islamic republic to address the issue of Western suspicions of its nuclear and missile programs, the head of the country’s nuclear energy agency once again announced the country’s readiness to trade uranium with the 5 + 1 Group.

Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani yesterday requested that the Islamic Republic act in a manner that addressed the “suspicion” of the 5 + 1 Group about Iran’s nuclear program.  In his seven-point proposals issued to celebrate the new Persian year that begin on March 21st, the head of the Expediency Council on Leadership that in theory supervises the work of the country supreme leader, wrote, “If there is mistrust they must act to establish trust.  We must also act within the framework of international relations in such manner that eliminates their suspicion.”  

According to ILNA, the head of the Council implicitly condemned the policies of Western nations and their “inappropriate actions.”  He also referred to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and missile policies: “These countries generally did not display a positive behavior towards us after the revolution and took actions that were inappropriate.  Now new issues have come up, such as the nuclear or missile issue or other issues, where they are reinforcing their enmity.”  

Referring to the rights of the Islamic Republic and the West, ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani said, “I think if they are happy with their rights Iran would be happy with its rights too.”

Trading 1200 Kilograms of Uranium
Meanwhile, in an interview with Javan daily – affiliated with the Islamic Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps – the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Commission Ali Akbar Salehi announced the Islamic Republic’s willingness to hand over 1200 kilograms of uranium on the condition that the West simultaneously provided the Islamic republic with an equivalent amount of nuclear fuel.  He said, “We are willing to turn over the entire fuel at once, on the condition that the fuel trade takes place simultaneously and inside Iran.  What is important to us is for the trade to take place simultaneously and inside Iran, so that there is a guarantee that we will receive the fuel.”

Commenting on Russia’s cold diplomatic support for the Islamic republic, Ali Akbar Salehi said, “Russia is after all a large country, with its own interests, and must in any case have relations with today’s world.  We are a strategic neighbor for Russia, but America or Western Europe’s technological and economic help are also very important to it.  One of Russia’s important trade partners is Western Europe; it exports its gas to Europe and receives most of its imports from there.

Soon after talks with the 5+1 last year, Iran rejected the swap proposal by which Iran’s 3.5% enriched uranium would be sent outside for further enrichment. Iran argued that it wanted to relinguish it uranium in batches, which was rejected by the IAEA, the US and the EU. Following that, Ahmadinejad asked Iran’s IAEA to enrich its uranium to 20%, which resulted in further deterioration of relations with the West so that even Russia which had been till then promoting talks rather than sanctions expressly spoke of sanctions against Iran.

Salehi said that the reason Iran did not want to sent its uranium outside the country for further enrichment was the “wall of distrust” that existed regarding the West, adding, “Germany received money from us for fuel but did not deliver, and so we were forced to sell our fuel inside Germany to another company. In France too we had 86 tons of fuel but it agreed to only 32 tons arguing that there were accounting differences, and in any case had not delivered the remaining 50 tons. All this relates to 31 years ago. If we assume that we have been doing nuclear work only during the last eight years, why did they not return our fuel 30 years ago, when we had no nuclear activities.”