Iran says it’s ready to send uranium abroad

February 3, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran said Tuesday it was ready to send its uranium abroad for further enrichment as requested by the U.N.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the decision in an interview with state Iranian television.

He said Iran will have “no problem” giving the West its low- enriched uranium and taking it back several months later when it is enriched by 20 percent.

The decision could signal a major shift in the Iranian position on the issue.

Still, it was unclear how much of a concession the Ahmadinejad comments represented, even though he appeared to be saying for the first time that Iran was willing to ship out its enriched uranium and wait for it to be returned in the form of fuel for its Tehran research reactor.

But his time frame of four or five months appeared to fall short of the year that Western officials say it would take for Iran’s enriched fuel to be turned into fuel rods for the reactor.

If that difference cannot be bridged, it could allow Iranian officials to assert that the deal failed due to Western foot-dragging.

Ahmadinejad also did not address whether his country was ready to ship out most of its stockpile in one batch — another condition set by the six world powers endorsing the fuel swap.

If Iran were to agree to export most of its enriched uranium in one shipment, it would delay its ability to make a nuclear weapon by stripping it of the material it needs to make the fissile core of a warhead.

Experts believe it would need at least a year to replenish its stockpile at its present rate of uranium enrichment.

The West suspects that Iran’s nuclear program is geared toward acquiring atomic weapons. Iran denies the charge and says the program is for the peaceful purpose of generating energy.

Officials with the International Atomic Energy Agency did not immediately return after-hours calls to their mobile phones seeking comment.

Said U.S. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid of the proposal: “There has been some discussion about details, but the deal is the deal and the Iranians need only to tell the IAEA they are prepared to take it and we can move forward from there.”

The foreign ministries of Britain, France and Germany said they had no immediate comment.