Iran said it is to send its nuclear agreement with Brazil and Turkey to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) despite renewed threats of sanctions, a news report said Friday, according to dpa. "The Tehran agreement plus a letter by the president (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) will soon be sent to the IAEA," Iran's atomic chief Ali-Akbar Salehi was reported as saying by television network IRIB. Iran agreed Monday to ship its low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Turkey and store it there until it receives medium-enriched uranium fuel for its Tehran medical reactor. The Tehran agreement, brokered by Turkey and Brazil, was based on a plan put forward in October by the IAEA, whereby Iranian uranium was to be enriched in Russia and processed into fuel in France. Negotiations on the IAEA plan broke down when Iran refused to send its LEU abroad without swapping it, on Iranian soil, for processed fuel. After mediation by Brazil and Turkey, Tehran said Monday it would agree to store the LEU in Turkey and make the swap through the Turkish authorities. If the IAEA and the Vienna group - the United States, Russia and France - approve the agreement, Iran would send 1.2 tons of its LEU to Turkey within a month. Despite the proposed agreement, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council have prepared a resolution for renewed sanctions against Iran. The five, including Iran's allies China and Russia, reached agreement on a "strong draft" of the resolution, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday. "The US and its allies' persistence to go on with the sanctions' plans proved our standpoint that the US is not trustworthy," Salehi said. "On the other hand, Iran and independent countries like Brazil and Turkey proved that they are quite capable of handling and resolving crisis situations," added Salehi, who is also the nation's vice-president. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted by ISNA news agency as saying that the world powers should agree to the proposed Turkish solution, or the dispute would remain in the deadlock which has persisted for years. The uranium exchange deal would not settle all aspects of the dispute over Iran's enrichment programme, but it is still considered by observers to be a first possible step for a breakthrough. Iran rejects Western charges that it has been working on a secret programme to make an atomic bomb, and insists on its right to pursue peaceful nuclear development. Tehran has said it might revise its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and reverse its cooperation with the IAEA, if punished again by UN resolutions and sanctions.
