US seeking Iran's UN deal clarification

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-31 04:17

WASHINGTON: The United States has no news about Iran's response to a UN-drafted offer, and is looking forward to a clarification from Iran on the deal, the State Department said on Friday.

"The director general of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) is seeking clarification from the Iranians with regard to the proposal on the Tehran research reactor," State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood told a news briefing.

Referring to Iran's latest saying they want to restart negotiations over the UN-drafted offer, Wood said that "this is the first I've heard of this ... I would just say, look, we're waiting for that clarification so that we can go forward."

Speaking of the UN-drafted offer, the spokesman insisted that "This is a good agreement. It's a good confidence-building measure. "

While Washington is trying to seek clarification from Iran on nuclear fuel, the White House warned on Friday that Iran's time to accept the UN-drafted deal with global powers on its nuclear program "is not unlimited."

"The president's time is not unlimited, this was not about talking for the sake of talking, this was about reaching an agreement that just a few weeks ago seemed to be something that the Iranians wanted," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

The draft agreement, presented by the IAEA, calls for shipping most of Iran's existing low-grade enriched uranium to Russia and France, where it would be processed into fuel rods with a purity of 20 percent.

The higher-level enriched uranium would be transported back to Iran to be used in a research reactor in Tehran for the manufacture of medical radioisotopes.