Mehr News and PressTV are now reporting that no deal was reached during the Geneva talks regarding Iran shipping its domestically low-enriched uranium stock to Russia for further refinement.
Press TV reports today that Iran's Supreme National Security Council said the assumption that such an agreement had been reached with the P5+1 (permanent members of Security Council plus Germany) during the Geneva talks was untrue. The Council's Media Secretary Peyman Jebelli made the announcement in an interview with Press TV.
Earlier, on Oct. 2nd, Mehr News reported that a member of the Iranian delegation who attended the Geneva talks on Thursday said no agreement was made on delivering Iran’s 5 percent enriched uranium to one of the 5+1 countries and receiving 20 percent enriched uranium.
Mehr further reported that the negotiator, who spoke to the Mehr News Agency on condition of anonymity, said no consensus was made about inspection of the Fordoo nuclear project near Qom in two weeks.
Both news agencies are reporting that the issue of supplying Iran with medium-enriched uranium and the inspection date for the Qom enrichment site will be topics of discussion at a meeting between the IAEA and Iran on Oct. 18. They also state that this was prearranged before Iran's meeting with the P5+1 group in Geneva, Switzerland.
Analysis:
The Iranians may be emphasizing the fact that nothing was actually finalized at the Geneva Talks 2 Forum. The medium-enrichment proposal in Russia may be something put on the table that the Iranian negotiators agreed to pursue "in principle".
However, the declarations in Iran's news media may also signal that the Iranian decision makers have now had a chance to study the contents of the Geneva talks, and based upon this have drawn up more calculated positions on the issue of MEU and the Qom inspection schedule.
It probably hasn't helped any that Western government and media sources are openly depicting the medium-enrichment proposal in Russia as the means of purposely withdrawing Iran's LEU stock, in order to deny it the supposed ability of producing a nuclear weapon. This gives the impression of a "hostage-like" situation in the making, which could serve to undermine Iran's position in nuclear discussions, as well as set back its civilian nuclear program. Likewise, the Qom nuclear site inspection is also being depicted as a P5+1 "demand", when in reality it involves the IAEA and Iran exclusively. The Iranians appear sensitive to such depictions, which more often than not have the effect of influencing their positions on diplomacy.
--MARK PYRUZ
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