[QUOTE]
With a negotiating deadline just two days away, Iranian officials on Sunday backed away from a critical element
of a proposed nuclear agreement, saying they are no longer willing to ship their atomic fuel out of the country.
For months, Iran tentatively agreed that it would send a large portion of its stockpile of uranium to Russia, where
it would not be accessible for use in any future weapons program. But on Sunday Iran’s deputy foreign minister
made a surprise comment to Iranian reporters, ruling out an agreement that involved giving up a stockpile that Iran
has spent years and billions of dollars to amass.
“The export of stocks of enriched uranium is not in our program, and we do not intend sending them abroad,” the
official, Abbas Araqchi, told the Iranian media, according to Agence France-Presse. “There is no question of sending
the stocks abroad.”
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]If the fuel had been shipped to Russia, the plan called for Moscow to convert it into specialized fuel rods for the Bushehr
nuclear power plant, Iran’s only commercial reactor. Once it was converted into fuel rods, it would have been extremely
difficult for Iran to use the material to make a nuclear weapon.
It is not clear what form the fuel would take if it remains on Iranian territory.
The disclosure also adds a new element to the growing debate over whether the proposed agreement would meet
President Obama’s oft-stated assurance that the world would have at least a year’s warning if Iran raced for a bomb —
what experts call “breakout time.”
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]That calculation over “breakout time” is so complex that experts from Britain, France, Germany and Israel all have
somewhat slightly different calculations than those of experts from the United States.
The debate over breakout time intensified when Olli Heinonen, who ran inspections for the I.A.E.A. before moving to Harvard
several years ago, published a paper on Saturday concluding that, based on leaked estimates that Iran would operate
roughly 6,500 centrifuges, “a breakout time of between seven and eight months would still be possible.”
A senior Obama administration official here said that while he did not dispute Mr. Heinonen’s figures, the former inspector
had conducted a textbook calculation rather than examining the real-life conditions at Iran’s facilities.
[/QUOTE][URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/world/middleeast/iran-backs-away-from-key-detail-in-nuclear-deal.html"]
Source: New York Times[/URL]
The source contains more information and quotes from people taking part in the negotiations.
I wonder if Iran is pushing for something in return to get it back to the original plan.
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