&host=www.rt.com&uri=/news/iran-nuclear-program-iaea/comments/&via=1.1 4.27.8.139:80 (Footprint 4.8/FPMCP)&ua=CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html))
Iran yet to respond to uranium deal
Published: 30 October, 2009, 23:34
Edited: 01 November, 2009, 20:38
Iran has not responded to the proposed uranium deal but is ready for further talks. Besides, the country is posing new conditions, according to the Iranian state news agency IRNA.
There is more to this IAEA-Iran agreement than what the media says. Iran should not allow 75% of its fuel to leave the country. What guarantees does Iran have that this fuel will be given back, or given back in normal quantities and not witheld or rationed as part of some type of blackmail campaign? France's involvement makes this very possible. Iran does not need to give most of its fuel up as a confidence buidling measure. This can be achieved by Iran giving 25% of its LEU at one time, as an example. The west has a history of witholding nuclear fuel and equipment from Iran, so Iran's refusal to ship out most of its LEU overseas is understandable.
It does not pay to be hasty in journalism. The previous news stories were too quick to jump the gun, but now also too quick to quote an unofficial source. It is really regrettable that some principles cannot be followed. The only good source of information is IAEA. The proposal to Iran, while signed by Five Plus One, was in fact IAEA proposal, marked DRAFT. Iran has given IAEA a verbal response, that included proposed technical changes to the nuclear material transport. These are the ONLY real facts; everything else, a speculation. Therefore, the speculation on the response by other countries is fueled more by those trying to influence the process, then reality. It would pay to be patient, and report from reliable sources. When reporting on the reactions of others, it should be clearly noted that those reactions are based on speculation, as the real content of Iranian verbal response to IAEA has not been made public. Only the issue of scheduling has been mentioned.