Turkey's foreign minister said he believed it was still possible to revive a deal, widely regarded as dead, under which Iran would send much of its low enriched uranium for processing abroad.
Turkey's foreign minister said on Wednesday he believed it was still possible to revive a deal, widely regarded as dead, under which Iran would send much of its low enriched uranium, or LEU, for processing abroad.
Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters he had discerned a change in the Iranian stance over the past several months during which he said he visited Tehran about a half-dozen times, most recently in early March.
"There is a positive development and change of approach," Davutoglu told reporters. "We have some chance and if we continue this diplomacy, I think we can achieve a solution."
According to Western diplomats, Iran agreed "in principle" to a deal that would move most of its enriched uranium out of the country during an Oct. 1 meeting in Geneva with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany.
The uranium would have been further enriched abroad and sent back to Iran -- under tight international safeguards -- to run a nuclear research reactor in Tehran that was built before the 1979 Islamic revolution and produces medical isotopes.
Iran ignored a US call for a formal decision on the deal -- seen as a way to build trust and to start to address Western concerns it may be developing a nuclear bomb -- by the end of the year.
As a result, Western officials have all but declared the agreement dead and major powers have begun to discuss a fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, which says its nuclear program is to generate power.
Nothing behind the curtain?
Davutoglu, who said he may return to Iran in the coming weeks, said Tehran previously insisted on a simultaneous exchange inside Iran of its LEU for the fuel for its research reactor but it was now "more flexible in that position."
He said one problem was that the international community did not have sufficient stocks of medium enriched uranium, or MEU, to hand over to Iran in exchange for its low enriched uranium.
"If we have today enough MEU in our hand to give to Iran, we will get the Iranian uranium the same day," he said.
Davutoglu repeated Turkey''s opposition to sanctions against Iran. Some analysts suspect Iranian hints of flexibility may aim to undercut support for sanctions on Security Council, whose elected members currently include Turkey.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley voiced skepticism that Tehran was actually willing to resuscitate the deal.
"The details do matter," Crowley said. "Iran communicates publicly ... some greater flexibility, but when you, you know, look behind the curtain, there's really nothing there."
George Perkovich, a nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, also suggested the onus was on Iran to show it was serious.
He said the West was likely to adopt the position that Iran should "give us some detail and show us that our concerns will be met too and then we can talk."
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