China: Iran Plays Constructive Role in Talks with 5+1.

Summary: TEHRAN (FNA)- China announced that Iran has played a constructive role in its talks with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - plus Germany.

Speaking in a meeting with the Undersecretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) here in Tehran on Sunday, the Chinese deputy foreign minister called for the continuation of talks between Iran and the Group 5+1.Major powers put forward a proposal in Geneva talks with Iran on October 19, suggesting that Iran sends about 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium stockpile out of the country in exchange for metal fuel rods for a Tehran medical research reactor some 15 months later. Iranian lawmakers rejected the deal after technical studies showed that it would only take two to three months for any country to further enrich the nuclear stockpile and turn it into metal nuclear rods for the Tehran Research Reactor. Iran then put forward its own proposal that will envisage a two-staged exchange; the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards nearly one third of Iran's uranium stockpile inside the Iranian territory for the time that it takes to find a supplier. Tehran says it will deal with any potential seller that is a member of the UN nuclear agency to deliver uranium enriched to the level of 20 percent to the UN-monitored site.Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said last week that although Iran would not send its 3.5-percent-enriched uranium out of the country for further reprocessing, it would still be willing to consider the nuclear fuel deal if the conditions of the procedural transfer were changed. Iran needs the higher enriched fuel to run the Tehran nuclear reactor, which produces medicine for cancer treatment and other clinical requirements. The Iranian foreign minister stated Tehran would be ready to consider exchanging its low-grade nuclear fuel with higher grade enriched uranium in a simultaneous swap inside the country.

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