Iran to notify IAEA of trilateral nuclear-swap deal

By Zhang Wen

Iran is set to submit a letter to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano today to formally appraise him on its trilateral nuclear-swap deal signed with Brazil and Turkey.

Iranian Press TV quoted a statement by Iran's Supreme National Security Council as saying that Tehran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Asghar Soltanieh is scheduled to meet Amano today, accompanied by representatives of Brazil and Turkey.

According to the new swap agreement, Iran will send 1,200 kilograms of its enriched uranium stocks to Turkey in exchange for fuel rods for a Tehran medical research reactor.

However, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council brushed off the deal with a draft resolution on a new set of sanctions against Iran.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Saturday that Iran's nuclear deal with Brazil and Turkey does not go far enough, but at least it served to clarify that Tehran intends to continue enriching uranium, AFP reported.

Kouchner, who met with his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, in Istanbul on Saturday, said, "I cannot but note that shortly after ... they signed, there was the Iranian declaration on the continuation of enrichment."

A day later, Iran said it would decide its next move on the nuclear fuel-swap deal based on the upcoming development.

"Iran will make its decision based on future developments," Iran's head of the Parliament's National Security and Foreign Police Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi was quoted by the Fars news agency as saying.

In remarks broadcast on state-owned IRIB, Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani even said Tehran might review its cooperation with the IAEA.

"If the Americans want to seek adventure, all the efforts of Turkey and Brazil will be in vain and this path will be abandoned," Reuters quoted Larijani as saying.

Influential cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had earlier denounced Western reactions to the deal and their push for sanctions, saying, "Iran is very serious and determined" in its pursuit of nuclear technology.

Analysts also doubt further sanctions could really change Iran's action.

"There is nothing in recent history that suggests that modest sanctions such as those contained in the draft resolution ... will divert Iran's current leaders from their current path," Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a leading US think tank, told AFP.

"Another unsuccessful sanction may become an excuse for Israel and the US to start a war against Iran," said Zhang Zhaozhong, a professor at the National Defense University.