Iran's atomic energy chief said Friday that his country preferred nuclear talks with world powers to be held in Turkey, according to dpa. "Iran prefers the venue of the talks with the 5+1 group being Turkey and after the (Muslim fasting) month of Ramadan," Ali-Akbar Salehi told ISNA news agency. Ramadan ends on September 9. He added that Iran wants Turkey and Brazil - who voted against the latest United Nations Security Council resolution against Iran - to be included in the talks. Salehi said that the talks with the 5+1 group - the five permanent Security Council member states plus Germany - should be based on the uranium swap deal reached in May with Turkey and Brazil. That agreement is roughly based on an initial plan brokered in October by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) under which Iran's uranium, enriched to below 5 per cent, was to be exported to Russia for further enrichment, and then to France for processing into fuel for a mediacl reactor in Tehran. In the agreement inked between Iran, Turkey and Brazil, Tehran agreed to store 1.2 tons of its low-enriched uranium in Turkey until delivery of 120 kilograms of fuel for the reactor. However, that deal met with resistance from the major powers, as Iran started in February to enrich uranium to 20 per cent, which was not covered in the Brazil-Turkey deal. Experts have said the 20-per-cent enrichment brings Iran closer to producing material that could be turned into weapons-grade material for a nuclear bomb. Iran informed the IAEA earlier this week that it was ready to renegotiate the swap deal in Vienna with the IAEA, United States and Russia. The Mehr news agency on Friday quoted Salehi as saying that Iran was ready to hold talks in Vienna "even within the next few days." Salehi reiterated that Iran was ready to suspend enriching uranium to 20 per cent if the swap deal was implemented and the necessary fuel for the Tehran medical reactor provided. Iran started enriching its uranium to 20 per cent in February after the initial swap deal failed. Tehran claims to have already produced 17 kilograms of the 20-per-cent uranium.
