Iran has given an assurance that it would stop enriching uranium to 20 percent purity if world powers agreed to a proposed nuclear fuel swap, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters in Istanbul.
The offer, conveyed to Davutoglu on Sunday, could bode well for an expected resumption of talks in September between Iran and major powers on the Islamic Republic’s atomic program, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes and not for bombs.
Asked about Davutoglu’s comments, the U.S. State Department said Iran had often sent mixed signals but that the United States was “fully prepared” to resume talks among the six major powers and Tehran about Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran last met the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia in Geneva in October, when they discussed Iran sending some low-enriched uranium abroad in exchange for fuel for a Tehran reactor that makes medical isotopes.
“We hope to have the same kind of meeting coming up in the coming weeks that we had last October,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters. “We are interested in a process — more than one meeting.”
Uranium enrichment is a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or, if carried out to a much higher degree, can yield fissile material for atomic bombs.
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In February, Iran announced that it had started enriching uranium to 20 percent purity, from about 3.5 percent previously, raising concern that it might be planning to enrich uranium still further and to produce weapons grade material.
Since June, fresh sanctions have been imposed on Iran by the U.N. Security Council, the United States, and, on Monday, by the European Union, increasing the pressure on Tehran.
One of the demands made in repeated U.N. Security Council resolutions is that Iran suspend uranium enrichment entirely.
Turkey and Brazil brokered a deal in May for a nuclear fuel swap in Tehran, hoping that this would draw Iran and major powers back to the negotiating table, but the six powers were lukewarm about the plan. At the time, Iran said it would continue enriching uranium to 20 percent.
Davutoglu, who met his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki and Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim on Sunday, said Iran was ready to lay to rest concern over its enrichment program if the proposed nuclear fuel swap went ahead.
