Iran mulls compromise nuclear offer

Ahead of a November 24 deadline to seal a deal, diplomats said the US had begun floating alternates to reducing centrifuges that would eliminate the disagreement but still accomplish the goal of increasing the time Iran would need to make a nuclear weapon.

VIENNA // Iran is considering a US proposal at nuclear talks that would allow it to keep more of its nuclear infrastructure intact while still reducing its ability to make an atom bomb.

At issue is Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, which can make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of nuclear arms. Tehran insists the programme is only for future energy needs.

Iran is refusing US demands that it cut the number of working enriching centrifuges from nearly 10,000 to only a few thousand. That dispute has been the main stumbling block to progress since the talks began this year.

Ahead of a November 24 deadline to seal a deal, diplomats said last month that the US had begun floating alternates to reducing centrifuges that would eliminate the disagreement but still accomplish the goal of increasing the time Iran would need to make a nuclear weapon.

Among them was an offer to tolerate more centrifuges if Tehran agreed to reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, which can fuel reactors but is also easily turned into weapons-grade material.

Back then, Iran was non-committal.

But the two diplomats said on Thursday it recently began discussions with Moscow on possibly shipping some of its low-enriched stockpile to Russia for future use as an energy source.

Russia supplies fuel for Iran’s existing nuclear reactor.

Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister said Tehran opposed extending the talks beyond November 24, even though major stumbling blocks remain in the way of a deal.

“We only have 40 days left to the deadline and ... none of the negotiators find (an) extension of talks appropriate,” Mohammed Javad Zarif said in Vienna, a day after six hours of intense talks with US secretary of state John Kerry.

“We share this view ... and we think there is no need to even think about it,” Mr Zarif said.

The main bone of contention remains Iran’s enrichment capacity.

Other thorny areas include the pace of sanctions relief, the time frame that an accord would cover, and a stymied UN probe into past suspect “military dimensions” of Iran’s activities.

“Everyone has been working incredibly hard ... These are incredibly complex negotiations, the detail is extraordinary,” the senior US official said.

“Until everything is agreed, nothing is agreed, and you can get 98 per cent of the way, and the last two per cent may kill the entire deal.”

Mr Zarif told Al Monitor that the gaps were "narrowing, but we still have a long way to go".

“It is reconcilable, provided everyone makes the tough decisions.”

* Associated Press with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse