Thursday, March 24, 2005

EU Studying Iranian Plan For Small-Scale Uranium Enrichment

The AFP is reporting that the EU is considering an Iranian proposal to allow the Islamic republic to produce enriched uranium on a small scale.
Iran made the proposal to be allowed to run a pilot centrifuge project for uranium enrichment at a meeting in Paris on Wednesday with EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany, according to a European official who asked not to be named. ... READ MORE

Experts have told AFP the idea is to have from 500 to 2,000 centrifuges instead of the 54,000 centrifuges Iran has said it wants to build, an industrial-style arrangement which could produce large amounts of fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but also in highly enriched form the explosive core of atom bombs.

The official said the European trio were “going to look at this (the Iranian proposal) with experts.

If the experts find a way to monitor this in an effective way (to guarantee that Iran can not enrich uranium to make nuclear weapons), then why not,” the official said. ...

But a senior European diplomat told AFP: If you want to have an agreement, both sides will have to compromise.