US pessimistic Iran will reply to nuclear offer
AFP
WASHINGTON- US officials Tuesday appeared pessimistic about the chances of Iran responding to a UN-backed deal to ship its low-enriched uranium stock out of the country.
"We hope that they will provide a formal response, but the failure to provide a response to this and its overall noncompliance, as laid out in the IAEA agreement, frankly, doesn't give us a whole lot of confidence that they will respond formally," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.
The UN's atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on Monday called for more information from Tehran about a previously secret nuclear site.
It said it had been told by Iran in a letter that the new site near the holy city of Qom should be operational in 2011, heightening fears Tehran is edging closer to developing a nuclear bomb.
US President Barack Obama said before Monday's IAEA report that Iran was "running out of time" to accept a deal put forward on October 21 whereby other nations, notably Russia, would enrich its uranium.
"I mean, clearly, we're going to have to review the bidding, given the fact that Iran has not provided us with a formal response," Kelly said Tuesday.
Under the UN-backed deal, Iran would rely on Russia and France to process low-enriched uranium to fuel a Tehran reactor that makes medical isotopes.
The Islamic republic would be left without sufficient material to make a nuclear weapon, at least from stockpiles known to the international community.
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