Russia on Monday downplayed progress on its plan to alleviate fears over Iran’s nuclear programme, saying there was still work to be done to reach agreement and warning that time was quickly running out ahead of a March 6 deadline.
“This is a complex issue and the negotiations are difficult,” Russia’s chief nuclear negotiator with Iran, Sergei Kiriyenko, told the official Itar-Tass news agency in an interview on his return to Moscow following weekend talks in Tehran.
“There is little time left for further agreements,” the agency quoted Kiriyenko as saying, though he also voiced optimism that a comprehensive agreement could be reached in the days ahead of the next International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting on Iran on March 6.
“A few issues still need to be agreed upon,” said Kiriyenko, who is head of the Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom.
At a joint news conference on Sunday with Kiriyenko in the Iranian city of Bushehr, site of Iran’s first nuclear power station, which is being built by Russia, Tehran’s chief nuclear negotiator said the two sides “have reached an agreement in principle” on the Russian compromise plan.
Under that scheme, Russia and Iran would establish a joint venture for enriching uranium on Russian soil for use in Iran’s civilian nuclear stations.
Iran has so far said it wants to fully control the uranium enrichment process inside Iran, a stand that has sparked fears in Russia and the West because the process can be used to produce both fuel for nuclear power and the vital ingredient of nuclear bombs.
Iran insists that its nuclear programme is intended strictly for generation of nuclear power and not for production of nuclear weapons.
Itar-Tass quoted an unnamed source within the Russian delegation sent to Iran over the weekend as saying the result of the talks there amounted to “a small half-step forward”.
The source said Tehran was still insisting that all scientific research and development work on uranium enrichment be carried out within Iran, a condition which the source said “defeats the very purpose of the joint venture” for uranium enrichment in Russia.
“Russia cannot go forward with creation of a joint venture under such terms,” the source said, adding that this would be in contravention of the last IAEA resolution on Iran calling for the immediate halt of uranium enrichment work.
The source stressed that, apart from ensuring that Iran received fuel for its nuclear power plant, the point of the Russian proposal was to resuscitate international trust in Tehran’s claim that its nuclear programme was strictly civilian and said Iran could still accept the offer.
“There is still a week left before the IAEA board of governors meets,” the source said. “Anything is possible” between now and then.
Itar-Tass separately reported that a high-level Iranian delegation led by Ali Husseini Tash, deputy chief of Iran’s national security council, was due in Moscow this week to continue negotiations with Russia.
Though Russian officials downplayed progress made during the weekend in Tehran, newspapers hailed the negotiations as a major step forward.
“The second round of Russian-Iranian negotiations on the creation of a joint venture to enrich uranium on Russian soil unexpectedly brought a sensational result,” the official Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily said.
The IAEA board of governors was due on March 6 to vote on whether or not to refer the Iranian nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council, which has the power to introduce sanctions on Iran over the nuclear issue. – AFP