Iran Is Said to Ignore Effort to Salvage a Nuclear Deal
New York Times / David E. Sanger
08-Nov-2009 (one comment)

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, attempting to salvage a faltering nuclear deal with Iran, has told Iran’s leaders in back-channel messages that it is willing to allow the country to send its stockpile of enriched uranium to any of several nations, including Turkey, for temporary safekeeping, according to administration officials and diplomats involved in the exchanges.

But the overtures, made through the International Atomic Energy Agency over the past two weeks, have all been ignored, the officials said. Instead, they said, the Iranians have revived an old counterproposal: that international arms inspectors take custody of much of Iran’s fuel, but keep it on Kish, a Persian Gulf resort island that is part of Iran.

A senior Obama administration official said that proposal had been rejected because leaving the nuclear material on Iranian territory would allow for the possibility that the Iranians could evict the international inspectors at any moment. That happened in North Korea in 2003, and within months the country had converted its fuel into the material for several nuclear weapons.

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Abarmard

Disagree

by Abarmard on Mon Nov 09, 2009 04:46 AM PST

In this specific case, the West is not giving any guarantees that they will deliver what they have promised. Iran logically is asking to first deliver on the historical promises, where countries such as France or US have taken the money and never delivered the product, and secondly provide some sort of proof that they are worthy of trust.

Historically, countries such as France, UK, Germany, Russia and US have not respected the contract deal and once they realized that Iranian system is weak, they ignored their delivery responsibilities.


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