MOSCOW, November 17 (RIA Novosti) - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said Tehran sees a U.S.-backed plan over nuclear fuel swaps as positive, provided that the exchange of enriched uranium takes place inside the country, the Indian RTT News reported on Tuesday.
Mottaki was quoted by the news agency as saying in an interview with an Indian newspaper that Iran is not willing to send its domestically enriched uranium abroad before the fuel intended for Tehran's nuclear reactor arrives in the country.
"If there is going to be any exchange of fuel inside Iran, this must mean one [part] of the fuel stays in Iran and the other [20% enriched] should be delivered," Mottaki said.
In October, during talks with the Iran Six, the Islamic Republic was proposed to ship 1,200 kilograms of its low enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be further enriched to 20% and sent to France for further processing. The plan was put forward by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to help quell international concern over Iran's nuclear activities.
According to the latest figures, Iran has presently acquired 1,800 kilograms of low-enriched uranium.
However, the Islamic Republic refused to send its stockpile to Russia, and the White House proposed to allow the country to send its uranium to any of several nations, including Turkey.
Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said the country was ready to store Iran's enriched uranium stockpile.
On Sunday, after a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Singapore, U.S. President Barack Obama said time was running out for diplomacy in a dispute over the Iranian nuclear deadlock.
Medvedev also warned Tehran could face new sanctions if nuclear talks yielded no results.
Tehran has rejected Western suspicions that it secretly plans to build nuclear weapons and insists on its right to nuclear technology for electricity generation.
Russia has consistently supported Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy, and has almost completed the country's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr.
