US official: IAEA guarantees delivery of fuel to Iran

A senior American official Mark Fitzpatrick said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its director general would guarantee the delivery of fuel to Iran.

Fitzpatrick, who is a Senior Fellow for Non-Proliferation with the International Institute for Strategic Studies and acts as an advisor to the US State Department in nuclear affairs, said the best guarantee for Iran to ensure the West would deliver upon its promises to provide nuclear fuel to Iranian power plants was the one by the IAEA because the international nuclear watchdog was frankly after having the plan ratified and implemented.

He further told IRNA in an exclusive interview that lack of trust in the opposite side certainly existed in both Iran and the West.

In answer to a question whether anything existed to guarantee that the West would fulfill its promises after receiving Iran’s low-enriched uranium and not continue creating obstacles, he said since the IAEA was the body which was in charge of handling the whole affair, it would naturally be responsible for the effective implementation of the plan.

He further believed that Iran faced no logical restrictions in cooperating with countries which are capable of providing the nuclear fuel it needs for its power plants.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has stated that the nuclear talks with a number of Western countries was only on providing the fuel needed for the Tehran nuclear plant, stating that uranium enrichment for other reactors was not suspended and the projects are still going on.

Iran’s nuclear negotiations entered a new phase in October this year when the IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, proposed that Iran would sent 75 percent of its uranium which has been enriched to the degree of 3.5 percent – totalling 1200 kgs – first to Russia and then to France to get the 20-percent enriched uranium it needs for medical purposes.

Later on, Iran declined to accept France as one of the options to receive Iran’s uranium initially sent to Russia and said since Paris has been insincere in fulfilling its promises in the past, Iran did not trust it this time either.

Still, many experts say it is Iran’s right to continue its enrichment program because they say there is no mention of stopping or suspending such activities in the agreement reached. Iran, too, has made it clear that it does not trust in the West and could not afford to stop its programs in a gesture of confidence-building with the West because it has already trusted in Western countries once before and saw them fail to keep their promises.

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