The report says: “It is not clear how Iran’s insistence that it will continue to enrich uranium itself is related to its offer to send low-enriched uranium abroad.”
Here’s what’s going on: Iran will continue as long as it can to make the bare minimum gestures it needs to in order to buy time, while continuing business as usual. “Iran to resume uranium enrichment despite Turkey deal,” from CNN, May 17:
(CNN) — Iran will continue to enrich uranium to 20 percent, it said Monday, despite agreeing hours earlier to ship its low-enriched uranium to Turkey.
Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told the Islamic Republic News Agency shortly after the announcement of the deal with Turkey that Iran will not stop enriching its own uranium.
That deal had been designed to answer international concerns that Iran was secretly trying to build nuclear weapons — a charge it has long denied.
“With this agreement there are no more excuses left for the other side to impose pressure and continue with hindering the whole process of fuel exchange for Iran,” Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said Monday.
He said he hoped the deal would lead the United Nations nuclear energy watchdog to close its file on Iran “forever.”
His speech was carried live by Iran’s government-backed Press TV.
The offer — announced in a joint statement Monday by Iran, Turkey and Brazil — would have Iran send 1,200 kg (2,645 lbs) of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey within a month, and the international group monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities send 120 kg (264 lbs) of high-enriched uranium to Iran within a year.
The group to whom Iran is making the offer — the so-called Vienna Group of the United States, Russia, France, and the International Atomic Energy Agency — did not respond immediately.
Iran, Turkey and Brazil said Iran would formally notify the IAEA of the proposal within a week.
If the deal is not accepted, Turkey will return Iran’s low-enriched uranium, the joint statement said.
Turkey’s indifference to the success or failure of this arrangement is telling:
Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin said Iran had made a major concession. “Iran is ready to deliver,” he said. “If the deal goes through that’s fine. If it doesn’t, then the 1,200 kilograms in Turkey will continue to belong to Iran and can be arranged for return.”
It is not clear how Iran’s insistence that it will continue to enrich uranium itself is related to its offer to send low-enriched uranium abroad….