By Anoush Maleki

Iranian officials on Monday said that the country is ready to engage in new negotiations under the full surveillance of the UN nuclear watchdog to buy ready-made fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran with any potential seller.

The announcement was the clearest sign to the Western world that the country sees no sensible reasons — as of yet — to trust the world powers with its own stockpile of uranium.

Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran looks at the nuclear talks with “no trust” after years of stonewalling by the West which were accompanied by sanctions.

Under a UN-brokered proposal discussed in Vienna in mid-October, the United States, France and Russia wanted Iran to send most of its domestically-produced low enriched uranium (LEU) abroad to be converted into more refined fuel for the Tehran reactor that produces medical isotopes.

The world powers introduced the plan, which was first floated by the Obama administration, as a measure to pare down Iran's uranium stockpile in order to buy time to engage the country over its nuclear activities with fears that the Iranians may opt to build a nuclear bomb at any time — a charge repeatedly denied by top Iranian officials.

Although Iran's response to the deal is not made public, it seems that the country has not completely dismissed the proposal.

Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, who is in Malaysia to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of eight Islamic countries, said on Monday that a technical panel should be set up to evaluate it before further talks, suggesting that should the world powers refuse a compromise, the deal would go belly up.

The research and technology deputy of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Qannadi, said that if the country fails to buy the fuel, it would enrich its own uranium to replenish dwindling fuel stocks for the reactor.

The 5MWt pool-type, water-moderated reactor, supplied by GA Technologies of the United States, became operational in 1967. The US supplied about 5kg of enriched uranium, containing fissile isotopes, and 112g of plutonium to Iran for use as “start-up sources”, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).

But after Washington halted supply of uranium to Iran following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Tehran sought to make changes to the reactor. In 1987, Argentina's Applied Research Institute (INVAP) replaced the core of the reactor to convert its required fuel from 93 percent enriched uranium to 20 percent.

Under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Argentine Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEA) then delivered 115.8kg of safeguarded 20 percent enriched uranium fuel to Iran.

Today, the country has the technology to produce the fuel itself. It, however, prefers to buy the fuel due to economic reasons.

Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh, told Press TV in a phone conversation that Tehran is ready for the next round of talks and seeks to find a solution to its technical concerns regarding the issue of a guarantee for the fuel.

“We are ready to buy [the fuel] from any supplier under the full surveillance of the IAEA … as we bought from Argentina about 20 years ago with the cooperation of the IAEA. The core issue is assurance and guarantee of the fuel.”

He also insisted that the UN agency is “mandated” to fulfill Iran's request under the articles I and II of the IAEA statue.

Article II states that the agency “shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world. It shall ensure, so far as it is able, that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose.”

The Iranian program, which has been under the full surveillance of the UN nuclear watchdog for the past six years, has been declared as a civilian one by the agency's director general, Mohamed ElBaradei.

Mr. ElBaradei, however, has asked Iran to increase its transparency and cooperation with the agency so it is able to remove any ambiguity about the program.

" I therefore urge Iran to be as forthcoming as possible in responding soon to my recent proposal based on the initiative of the United States, Russia and France which aimed to engage Iran in a series of measures that could build confidence and trust," he told the UN General Assembly on Monday.

And Iran will do just that when it is provided with guarantees over the fuel it seeks. The world powers, instead of pressuring the country and threatening it with fresh sanctions, should seek ways to make this happen.