Iran is awaiting an official response from international intermediaries to hold talks on a nuclear fuel swap that includes Turkey and Brazil in the negotiation process, ISNA news agency said Monday.
Tehran submitted in July a letter to IAEA Director General Yukio Amano, which expressed Iran's readiness to hold technical discussions on the supplying of 20%-enriched fuel for use in its Tehran scientific research reactor.
Russia welcomed Tehran's proposals, but the Western members of the so-called Iran Six group, which also includes Britain, China, France, Germany, and the United States, have yet to provide a clear response to the Iranian initiative.
"If the West really wants to help resolve this (the Iranian nuclear problem) issue, then the (technical) talks are a step to build trust and may help both sides (involved in negotiations)," ISNA quoted Iran's nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi as saying.
"We have not received any written official response in this respect," Salehi said.
The Iranian official reaffirmed Tehran's commitment to begin construction of a new uranium enrichment center in 2011. Iran plans to build a total of ten such centers in the future.
Western powers suspect Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons under the guise of its nuclear program, which Tehran says is aimed at the peaceful generation of civilian energy.
Senior diplomats from the Iran Six met Iranian officials in Geneva last October to discuss an agreement on a nuclear fuel swap, but the agreement eventually fell through.
The draft agreement proposed by former IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei would have seen Iran send out about 80% of its known 1.5 metric tons of low-enriched uranium to Russia, where it would have been enriched, and to France to convert it into fuel plates for the research reactor in Tehran.
International pressure on Iran increased in early February when Tehran announced it had begun enriching uranium to 20% in lieu of an agreement on an exchange that would provide it with fuel for a research reactor.
Turkey, Brazil and Iran signed an agreement on May 17, dubbed the Tehran Declaration, in which Iran committed itself to giving 1,200 kg of its 3.5%-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for 20%-enriched uranium it would receive from Western countries to be used as fuel in the nuclear research reactor near Tehran.
The trilateral deal did not stop the UN Security Council from passing on June 9 a resolution imposing a fourth set of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.
MOSCOW, August 16 (RIA Novosti)
