MOSCOW, February 3 (RIA Novosti) - The Iranian president's recent comments that put Russia's uranium enrichment proposal under a major question mark have no foundation, the Russian foreign minister said Friday.
"It is not serious to throw doubt on what Russia has honestly proposed to Iran," Sergei Lavrov said.
Iran's president put a Russian offer to enrich his country's uranium on its territory under a major question mark Thursday, when he questioned the details of the deal.
"We have been made an offer to have uranium enriched outside Iran," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. "But what will we do if at some point we are not supplied with nuclear fuel?"
The president said the Iranian people would not be deceived.
"From the very beginning, when we put forward the proposal in the context of Iran's talks with the EU-3, we made it a point that Russia should guarantee uninterrupted fuel supplies to Bushehr [nuclear power plant] and for other peaceful purposes," Lavrov said, referring to the trio of European nations - Germany, France and the United Kingdom - handling the Iranian situation.
Russia proposed earlier to enrich uranium on its territory for Iran and the Iranian authorities initially said the proposal could bring positive results, setting February 16 as the date for the next round of talks with Russia.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the UN's nuclear watchdog, praised Thursday the Russian initiative calling it a bridge to a fair resolution of the situation surrounding Iran's nuclear programs, which the United States and some European countries fear may lead to the Islamic Republic developing nuclear weapons.
