No Uranium Stockpile Shipment out of Iran: Iran’s nuclear chief

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi made it clear on Tuesday that the country will not transfer any shipment of uranium to any country for conversion into fuel for nuclear reactors.

“We will not give any fuel to anybody, and we have no plans to transfer any fuel out of the country,” Salehi told reporters in Tehran on Tuesday.

He made the comments in reaction to media speculations that Tehran would transfer part of its uranium stockpile to Russia as part of a final, comprehensive nuclear deal with world powers.

In November, The New York Times claimed that under a proposed agreement, Russia would convert the uranium into specialized fuel rods for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.

Iran and P 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) wrapped up seven days of intensive nuclear talks in Vienna on November 24 without securing a long-awaited comprehensive deal.

They decided to extend talks on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program for seven more months.

On November 24, 2013, Iran and P5+1 signed an interim nuclear deal in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The Geneva deal (the Joint Plan of Action) came into effect in January and expired in July, when the parties decided to extend negotiations until November 24 in the hope of clinching a final deal that would end a decade of impasse over Tehran’s peaceful nuclear energy program.