PARIS, October 30 (RIA Novosti) - France demands Iran immediately provide an official response to a package of proposals on nuclear fuel supplies for the Tehran research reactor, the French Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
"We call on Iran to immediately provide an official response. Iran's oral response envisions changes in the draft agreement," ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told journalists in Paris, adding that France is discussing with its allies how to react to Iran's position.
On Thursday, the UN nuclear watchdog said it "received an initial response from the Iranian authorities to [its] proposal to use Iran's low-enriched uranium for manufacturing fuel for the continued operation of the Tehran Research Reactor, which is devoted mainly to producing radioisotopes for medical purposes."
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), at an October 21 meeting in Vienna with Iran, France, Russia and the U.S., developed a package of proposals on nuclear fuel supplies for the Tehran reactor. Moscow, Paris and Washington said October 23 they approved the IAEA proposals.
IAEA initiatives envision that Iran's low-enriched uranium, produced at a nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, will undergo further enrichment in Russia. France would later make fuel assemblies.
Iran was to respond to IAEA proposals last Friday, but delayed the step until the middle of this week. Earlier Iranian media said Tehran "in its final response expressed consent with the project's main provisions but introduced certain changes."
The leaders of 27 EU countries who concluded on Friday a two-day meeting in Brussels have called on Iran to adopt the UN nuclear watchdog's scheme.
The U.S. and other Western countries suspect Iran of working to create nuclear weapons but Iran says it needs nuclear power solely for civilian purposes.
