Saeed Jalili
Speaking at a security summit on Tuesday, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili, told reporters that Iran needs more guarantees in order to ship enriched uranium and receive nuclear fuel in return for the Tehran research reactor.
''If we do not receive an actual guarantee, we have to resort to other options," Saeed Jalili said.
Under the UN deal, Iran would ship out low enriched uranium and receive fuel enriched to the 20 percent level required for a Tehran research reactor from Russia and France.
Turkey has no role in the nuclear negotiations, Saeedi said. '' We speak through the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) on the supply of nuclear fuel. The agency is responsible for passing on Iran's request to supplier countries.'' Turkey had offered to store Iranian uranium as an alternative to the original UN deal, under which Tehran would have sent its nuclear fuel to France and Russia.
Jalili said ''Iran needs fuel and wants to buy it; whoever wants to can supply it. Other countries may have expressed their views in this case but they have no role.''
Asked about Iran's final response to the UN deal, Saeed Jalili said, "Supplying nuclear fuel for the Tehran reactor is not a political issue. It has nothing to do with the P5+1 negotiations with Iran. It's purely commercial.''
The IAEA plan, however, does not see the fuel supply issue as purely commercial. Under the plan, Iran would ship out some 75 percent of its low-enriched uranium for conversion into fuel plates for the Tehran medical reactor. World powers want to reduce Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium below the amount needed, if refined to high purity, for a single atom bomb.
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