AFP: Russia called Tuesday on Iran to halt work on uranium conversion “without delay.”
“The wise decision would be to stop work that has begun on uranium conversion without delay,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
AFP
MOSCOW – Russia called Tuesday on Iran to halt work on uranium conversion “without delay.”
“The wise decision would be to stop work that has begun on uranium conversion without delay,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
“We are convinced that the situation that has arisen now has not gone beyond the point of no return. With goodwill it can be corrected,” the statement said.
But Tehran should immediately halt its nuclear fuel work and continue to work closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “to resolve remaining question over Iran’s nuclear program,” it added.
The Russian statement said that “unfortunately” Iran had resumed work on converting uranium but said it could stop this again with harming its efforts to develop nuclear energy program for civilian use.
“We think that Iran could definitely maintain the moratorium without any damage to the realization of its nuclear energy programme,” the statement added.
Russia plays a crucial role in Iran’s nuclear efforts and has led the project for construction of Iran’s first nuclear power station at Bushehr.
Earlier this year, Russia’s top nuclear official visit Tehran where he obtained agreement from Iranian officials for the return to Russia of all spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr plant.
The call from Russia came as Britain, France and Germany circulated a draft resolution ahead of a key meeting of the UN atomic watchdog urging Iran to stop nuclear fuel work that has raised concerns of a possible nuclear weapons program.
On August 2, ITAR-TASS news agency quoted an official at the Russian atomic agency as saying that Iran had every right to enrich uranium.
