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Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sea_urchin who wrote (12867)	10/3/2006 4:05:41 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

Told you so...() Iran trusts France more than Russia: Oct. 3, 2006* Iran proposes France enrich its uranium By ASSOCIATED PRESS PARIS A top Iranian nuclear official proposed Tuesday that France create a consortium to enrich Iran's uranium, in a bid to satisfy the international community's demands for outside oversight of Tehran's nuclear program. "To be able to arrive at a solution, we have just had an idea. We propose that France create a consortium for the production in Iran of enriched uranium," Mohammad Saeedi, deputy chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, told France-Info radio. "That way France, through the companies Eurodif and Areva, could control in a tangible way our enrichment activities," he added. World powers are in a standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, which Teheran insists is aimed at producing electricity but which many nations fear is aimed at making nuclear weapons. Iran ignored a UN Security Council deadline in August to suspend uranium enrichment or face possible sanctions. Saeedi gave no other details of his proposal, which appeared to be an Iranian initiative. France, a permanent member of the Security Council, is among the countries leading the push to stop Iran's nuclear activities. A French Foreign Ministry spokesman would not comment on Saeedi's proposal early Tuesday. France is the world's most nuclear energy-dependent country, relying on atomic reactors for about 75 percent of its electricity, and has several leading nuclear manufacturers including state-controlled Areva. Areva spokesman Charles Hufnagel expressed surprise at Saeedi's announcement. "We are not involved in any negotiations" about a possible consortium for enriching Iranian uranium, he said. He added that any discussions involving nuclear cooperation with Iran would be at the government level because of the sensitivity of the issue. Hufnagel said it was too early to comment on whether Areva would be ready in principle to lead such a consortium. Eurodif is a branch of state-controlled Areva that was created in the 1970s by France with support from Belgium, Spain, Italy - and Iran. Iran's participation was reduced after the 1979 revolution, and now Iran has a "purely financial" stake in Eurodif of about 11 percent through a joint French-Iranian company called Sofidif, Hufnagel said. Eurodif's plant in Pierrelate in southeast France produces about a quarter of the world's enriched uranium, for use in nuclear reactors in several countries. Teheran has claimed that it has 50 tons of UF-6 gas, the feedstock for enrichment, in Eurodif's uranium enrichment plant in France but has not been allowed to use it. Russia sought to defuse the dispute with Iran by offering to conduct all of Iran's enrichment on Russian soil, but Teheran has refused. Moscow says it has worked out a deal with Iran for all the plant's spent fuel to be sent to Russia, eliminating the possibility that Iran could reprocess it for weapons. jpost.com (*) Message 22011003 Message 22076558 Message 21425819