MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s foreign minister said Tuesday that Iran is willing to halt its 20-percent enrichment of uranium, which has been a key concession sought in international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
That is the highest level of enrichment acknowledged by Iran and one that experts say could be turned into warhead grade in a matter of months.
In an interview with the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA that was released by the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, Sergey Lavrov said that “for the first time in many years” there are encouraging signs in international efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear dispute.
He said Iran has confirmed that it is ready to halt production of uranium enriched to 20 percent. He did not give details, but said the sextet of international negotiators should make “substantial reciprocal steps.”
In the interview, Lavrov did not say which Iranian officials had expressed the willingness to pull back on enrichment and when the position was made known. The interview was released a day after Iran’s president-elect Hasan Rowhani promised a “path of moderation” that includes greater openness on Tehran’s nuclear program and overtures to Washington.
But Rowhani also said Iran would not halt uranium enrichment. That could indicate Iran would be satisfied to continue the relatively low-level enrichment needed for fuel rods in the reactor at its atomic energy plant in Bushehr.
Over the past year, the international community has imposed heavy economic sanctions on Iran, hoping they would be so painful that the Islamic republic’s clerical regime would slow its nuclear program.
“The international community should respond appropriately to the constructive moves by the Iranian side, including step-by-step halting and cancellation of sanctions — unilateral ones and those enacted by the UN Security Council,” Lavrov said.
Any halt in 20-percent enrichment would be a significant concession by Iran, but it would not necessarily mean any drawdown in enrichment capabilities; the labs could concentrate on lower-grade fuel. The 20-percent enriched material is used in Iran’s research reactor and is many steps closer to warhead-grade uranium than the type used in energy reactors.
Arnold,
As I said above, it is self-serving bullshit! 100% so!
No rational thinker should believe for a second that Iran will stop its march to weapons-grade nuclearity!
@ Laura:
“Everybodys gonna get Stoned”, Bob Dylan. Even cattle like to get high its a real problem.
Not true.
@ ArnoldHarris:
Russia,Poland et al, a curse on them.
nfarbstein:
I remind you, as I reminded Laura, that Lavrov’s comments hinting at a new willingness to compromise regarding weapons-grade nuclear fuels enrichment, could in fact be self-serving bullshit. Seeing is believing.
Laura:
Russians in fact are noted for excessive consumption of distilled liquors. And not a few of them are gangsters of low character. Both such descriptors are found in more or less equal proportion in American society. But to their credit, Russian culture steers clear of the rampant abuse of narcotics and tolerance of sexual perversity that are becoming normative in the United States and other counties in the western civilizational belt. In comparison, I could not imagine much public toleration of organized homosexuals in Russia attempting to legalize “marriages”. Therefore, I consider the Russian nation and the Russian state healthier than their American counterparts.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold,
I agree with Laura.
This merely is an attempt, albeit an obvious one, to remove the existing sanctions. This would enable the incoming Iranian president, Hassan Rouhaini (NOT a moderate), to improve the dire Iranian economy in order to maintain consolidate power. It also might help to persuade the Western powers, mainly President Barack Obama, not to countenance Assad’s ouster.
However, even the most naive realizes that 5.3% enrichment quickly can be converted to weapons grade.
It’s a land that breeds drunks and gangsters and people of very low character.
Except for Russian Jews, I hate Russians in general.
And there’s a reason why THEY LEFT RUSSIA. Because it sucks. You are enamored with dictatorships, but you never have had to suffer under their rule. I stand by my belief that Israel cannot ever trust any alliance with Russia and China, as the article proves. Whatever the shortcomings of our own government, the American people at least do support Israel.
Laura, perhaps you missed my warning comment:
I do not trust the government of the USA as the sole international patron of the State of Israel. This country stabs its client states in the back, then pontificates about it, all in the name of democracy.
I think the government of Russia protects its interests far better than their counterpart government of the USA. I do not trust democracy, either as a political system, a means of managing a large and complex commonwealth, or as an end goal of society. I am impressed by governments that are tough and stable, where, as long as you know and obey the clear-cut rules, you can avoid trouble. Nor have I ever written that I respect justice. In this country, justice is what you can purchase, if you have enough money.
Nor is my support of Russia or any other country blind. I never was either a socialist or communist. But I am certain that Stalin’s Russia would have beaten the Nazis without the aid of Britain and the United States, if it had come to that. The Russians had a far better army than the Germans, plus all but endless resources which could be exploited for war, plus the willingness to pay the price in blood that was needed to drive Hitler’s Wehrmacht out of their country, then overrun and smash the German capital in a veritable crashing symphony of blood and mass destruction.
Russia is a tough land that breeds tough people. The Russians whom my wife and I met during our 1-1/2 years in Israel in the early 1970s impressed me as the opposites of the endlessly-whining and temperamentally weak liberal Jews of the West, whom I have come to despise. It would please me greatly if Israel and the Jewish nation eventually come to resemble their Russian counterparts.
And yes, Laura. I wish Israel could have a working economic, political and military relationship with Russia and China, to take the place of the current dependency of the Jewish state with what I see as a weak and crumbling empire.
I served this empire once, as did my father in World War I. Three years in the US Army during and immediately after the Korean War. On behalf of a national leadership that was loud-mouthed enough to go to war, but not strong enough to accomplish more than a ceasefire. I have had a bad taste in my mouth and in my mind over the memory of that ceasefire 60 years ago. And I have witnessed the all but but continuous degeneration of this country and its electorate since that time. I pay my taxes, and I obey the laws. But respect is something I never award to the weak, the lazy, the feckless, the perverse, or the dishonorable.
There are a lot of Russians in Israel, Laura. And I know that a large number of them think exactly as I do. Russia is the country where my grandparents were born and raised in early childhood. And that’s a legacy that I cannot and shall not forget.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
You have to be kidding me, Arnold. You cannot be this naive. If anything, this article proves that Russia is completely untrustworthy and is in fact an enemy of Israel. Russia is providing cover for Iran, not actually getting it to give up its ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. Your blind support of Russia has reached the height of absurdity.
Obviously, Russia has far more influence in Iran than the USA and its European allies,individually or collectively. If Iran’s recent push toward weapons-grade refinement of their nuclear fuels could be halted by terminating the various sanctions that possibly are strangling their economy, that would be far less expensive and militarily dangerous than attempting to destroy their nuclear research and fuel processing centers.
It is increasingly obvious that Putin’s Russia and not Obama’s USA now calls the international shots in southwestern Asia. Israel should place its diplomacy and defense preparations accordingly. Russia tends to be relatively straightforward about defining their national and international interests. The time has come for Israel’s government to spend at least as much time talking with them as they do with Obama’s sagging US presidency.
In any case, all we have seen from this is a vaguely-stated report, which could prove to be little more than someone’s self-serving bullshit. Treat it with just that strong possibility.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI