By Anoush Maleki

The announcement on Friday that Iran is studying a deal under which it seeks to buy nuclear fuel for one of its research reactors came against a backdrop of a massive media campaign.

While the exact details of the arrangement have not been released, it was reported that if approved by Parliament, Tehran would have to send some 1,200 kilos of low-enriched uranium — which has been produced at the Natanz enrichment facility in central Iran — to Russia by the end of the year.

Russia, under the agreement, would then enrich the material to the 19.75 percent required by the Tehran Research Reactor, which produces medical isotopes for cancer patients, and return it to Iran in the form of metal fuel rod.

The initiative for the deal was first developed by the Americans when Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in June that the reactor fuel was running out, according to Time Magazine.

The proposal was then ironed out in Vienna during a three-day meeting, which started on October 19, between delegates from Iran, France, Russia and the United States and experts from the IAEA.

As the talks were underway, however; Western media launched a massive campaign to attach much importance not to Iran's lawful measure to acquire the fuel but to what has been portrayed as the heart of the “engagement strategy” of US President Barack Obama in regards to Tehran.

The West has long endeavored to spread its blown-out-of-proportion fear about the Iranian nuclear program that the country may opt to change the course of its civilian activities, which are under the 24-hour surveillance of the UN nuclear watchdog, and instead produce an atom bomb — despite its commitments to the international community under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which it is a signatory to.

The world, however, is not falling for this unsubstantiated allegation. Iran enjoys the strong support of the 118-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The IAEA, meanwhile, has yet to report a violation of commitments by Iran.

The Iranian program, thus, has become a much more important issue for the White House and Washington, which are under heavy pressure from their allies in Israel.

President Obama and his administration, in line with the promise of 'change', argue that the presence of a high-ranking delegation from Washington, led by a modest diplomat with a long history in the Middle East, William Burns, in Geneva signaled a historic turnabout in Washington's attitude toward Tehran and its nuclear program. The Geneva talks paved the way for the meeting in Vienna.

Now, US officials say if Iran refuses to sign the nuclear deal discussed in Vienna, the White House can play the sanctions card much easier — despite all the fuss, the Obama administration still pursues a carrot-and-stick policy toward Tehran.

On Friday, before Iran's Ambassador to the UN nuclear watchdog, Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh, announced that the country is still studying the nuclear deal and would inform the IAEA Director-General, Mohamed ElBaradei, in the middle of next week, according to a press release by the IAEA, the media was laying the ground that all parties — France, Russia and the United States — were to approve the deal.

Following Soltaniyeh's announcement, the hype was to depict Tehran as a party seeking to snub the international community and disregard the Vienna agreement.

However, all Iran wants, according to Soltaniyeh, is to make sure that the deal best suits its needs as a buyer of nuclear fuel.

Influential Iranian lawmakers, who have to approve the deal, have shown different reactions to the IAEA-approved draft, but they all have one thing in common: the rights and dignity of the Iranian nation have to be preserved in this deal.

"The stance by the sides involved in the deal indicates imposition and cheating," Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, who was the former top nuclear negotiator, said Saturday. "The important thing in this nuclear issue is that Westerners should not cheat. We have a nuclear reactor in Tehran and according to the IAEA rules, they have to supply the fuel for it."

Iran says it rather seeks to buy rather than exchange its own uranium. The country needs the low-enriched uranium for its under-construction nuclear power plants.

"It is better to buy 20 percent enriched fuel and keep the 3.5 percent for our domestic power plants," said Alaeddin Borujerdi, the chairman of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy committee.

Western media, however, is at work. The road for fresh United Nations Security Council sanctions against the country must be paved as the West desires; even a military action against Iran is not out of the question.

According to a poll conducted by CNN published on Tuesday, almost nine in 10 Americans believe the government in Tehran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Seventy-seven percent of the respondents said they favored economic sanctions to be imposed against Iran, while 54 percent said they would support a strike against Iranian nuclear installations to keep the country from becoming a nuclear power.

All the hype is about President Obama's vision of creating a world without nuclear weapons. The dream, however, lacks certain key elements when the deadly nuclear arsenal in possession of Israelis goes unchecked.

Iran is not North Korea. The country has complied with all its obligations to the IAEA. Its leaders have on many occasions ruled out the use of weapons of mass destruction —, even during the war that was launched by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who sanctioned the use of such weapons against Iranian troops.

The only constructive solution to what has become an international hoopla is diplomacy.