• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Moscow urges Iran Six for 'proper' dialogue on Tehran

RIA Novosti

15:20 02/11/2009 MOSCOW, November 2 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow is pushing for another meeting of six world powers for a 'proper' dialogue on Iran, the Russian foreign minister said on Monday.

Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States have been trying to persuade Iran to halt uranium enrichment for economic and diplomatic incentives. Iran-Six envoys last met in Geneva on October 1.

The meeting should give a start to a "proper dialogue" on those proposals the Iran Six officials have made to Iran and take into account "the ideas Iran has proposed in response," Sergei Lavrov said after talks in Moscow with his British counterpart, David Miliband.

At the Geneva meeting, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili promised that Tehran would soon open its new nuclear facility to UN inspectors.

Iran announced in September that it was building a new nuclear fuel enrichment plant near the holy city of Qom, some 100 kilometers (65 miles) south of Tehran.

The Russian diplomat also said he hoped Tehran would approve the IAEA proposal to send uranium abroad for further processing.

IAEA initiatives envision that Iran's low-enriched uranium, produced at a nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, will undergo further enrichment in Russia. France would later make fuel assemblies.

"We both want to see a prompt response from the Iranian regime in respect of the Tehran research reactor proposal," Miliband said.

The draft agreement proposed by IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei requires Iran to ship out 80 percent of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) in exchange for highly-enriched uranium converted into metal fuel rods.

Iran has rejected Western suspicions that it secretly plans to build nuclear weapons and insisted on its right to nuclear technology for electricity generation.

Russia has consistently supported Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy, and has almost completed the country's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr.