Israel Matzav

Iran thumbs its nose at the P5+1

Iran has formally rejected a P5+1 proposal that would have required it to ship most of its low enriched uranium out of the country in exchange for higher enriched uranium that would not have been capable of weaponization.

Iran has formally responded to a nuclear fuel swap proposal backed by the world's major powers with a counteroffer effectively rejecting their demand that Teheran quickly export most of the material it would need to make a warhead, diplomats said Tuesday.

For months, Iranian officials have used the media to criticize the plan and offer alternatives to one of its main conditions - that the Islamic republic ship out most of its stock of enriched uranium and then wait for up to a year for its return in the form of fuel rods for its Teheran research reactor.

While critical of such statements, the United States and its allies said they did not constitute a formal response to the plan, first drawn up in early October in a landmark meeting in Geneva between Iran and the six world powers, and then refined later that month in Vienna talks among Iran, the US, Russia and France.

The diplomats told The Associated Press that Iran first submitted such a formal response to the International Atomic Energy Agency earlier this month in a Jan. 6 meeting between Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's chief representative to the IAEA, and agency chief Yukiya Amano. They disagreed on whether the response was oral or written.

Let's go to the videotape.



Heh.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:46 AM