Iran refuses from IAEA's proposal

PanARMENIAN.Net - Tehran rejected the proposed UN plan on sending the Iranian enriched uranium abroad for further processing, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said.

According to him, the government is considering the possibility of exchanging uranium for fuel in Iran, the Iranian agency ISNA reports.

According to the U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly, the U.S. are still waiting for Tehran's formal response to the IAEA's proposal. Statements of Mottaki, according to him, do not "give us confidence" that Iran would accept the offer.

In October, the IAEA submitted a draft plan under which more than 70 percent of low-enriched uranium will be sent from Iran to Russia and France, where it will be processed into fuel for the medical research reactor in Tehran. The plan is aimed at weakening international concerns over Iran's nuclear program, which, as the West believes, will be directed to production of nuclear weapons. Tehran insists that its nuclear program has exclusively peaceful character.