Pat Dollard

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And who will make certain that all that is to be shipped is indeed shipped? And keep in mind that Brazil has been a staunch ally to Iran in support of its “right” to pursue its nuclear program.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran agreed Monday to ship most of its enriched uranium to Turkey in a nuclear fuel swap deal that could ease the international standoff over the country’s disputed nuclear program, just as pressure mounts for tougher sanctions.

The deal was reached in talks with Brazil and Turkey, elevating a new group of mediators for the first time in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear activities.

“It was agreed during the trilateral meeting of Iranian, Turkish and Brazilian leaders that Turkey will be the venue for swapping” Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium for nuclear fuel rods to power a medical research reactor, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on state TV Monday.

The deal would deprive Iran – at least temporarily – of the stocks of enriched uranium that it could process to the higher levels of enrichment needed in weapons production. The material returned to Iran in the form of fuel rods could not be processed beyond its lower, safer levels, which are suitable for use in the Tehran research reactor.

The deal goes to the heart of international concern over Tehran’s nuclear activities. Earlier negotiations led by Germany and the five permanent U.N. Security Council members – the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China – have sought to stop Iran from enriching uranium, and thereby deprive it of a possible pathway to nuclear weapons.

New York Times:

LONDON — Iranian state media said on Monday that Brazil and Turkey had brokered a compromise with Tehran in the international standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, a development that could undermine efforts in the United Nations to impose new sanctions on the Iranians.

Press TV, the state-funded satellite broadcaster, quoted an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, as saying that Iran had agreed to send some 1,200 kilograms of its lightly enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for a total of 120 kilogram enriched to a higher level — 20 percent.

The broadcaster said the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based United Nations nuclear watchdog, would officially receive a letter concerning the agreement “within a week.” There was no immediate response from the United States or other nations in the international group dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Press TV quoted one of its correspondents as saying the exchange would take place a month after a deal was agreed by Iran, France, Russia, the United States and the I.A.E.A. Diplomats in Vienna said the I.A.E.A. had not been formally notified about the reported deal.

The agreement could revive an earlier proposal, supported by the United Nations, for Iran to exchange fuel outside its borders.

That suggestion ran into many obstacles, including its timing, with Iran insisting on a simultaneous swap while outside powers wanted a delay in the exchange while Iran’s 3.5 percent pure uranium was enriched to a higher level.

While Iran offered to place its low enriched uranium under I.A.E.A. scrutiny inside Iran, it also wanted the exchange for more highly enriched fuel rods to take place on its own soil.

Tehran has said it has begun its own program to enrich uranium to the level of 20 percent purity, far less than is used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, while the United States has increased pressure for additional sanctions.

If the latest agreement meant Iran was now prepared for an exchange outside its own territory, that could represent a potentially significant step, said a diplomat in Vienna who spoke in return for anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters. Iran says it wants the enriched fuel for civilian purposes but the United States and its western allies suspect that Tehran is pursuing a weapons program.

First word of the agreement came on Sunday after talks in Tehran between Brazil’s president, Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that after 17 hours of talks in Tehran, that officials from Brazil, Iran and Turkey had reached an agreement on the “principles” to revive the stalled nuclear fuel-swap deal backed by the United Nations.

Mr. Erdogan canceled an official visit to Azerbaijan late Sunday and instead joined officials in Tehran.

The Brazilian and Turkish leaders have been trying to revive a deal reached last October in which Iran would ship much of its stockpile of enriched uranium abroad for further processing; the uranium would then return as fuel rods for a medical research reactor.

It was unclear whether the Obama administration, which has insisted on the need for new sanctions, would take any new iteration of the original United Nations-based deal for a fuel exchange.

The original terms were considered attractive to the United States and its allies because Iran would have temporarily relinquished most of its uranium. Because Iran has produced more uranium since then, the deal would very likely be less acceptable today.

But the blessing of Turkey and Brazil for such a swap agreement could put the Obama administration in the awkward position of appearing to take an unreasonably hard line.

The Brazilian delegation was scheduled to depart Tehran just after midday on Monday for a European Union-Latin American summit meeting in Madrid.

Like Brazil, Turkey also has been seeking to draw Iran back to negotiations as pressure mounts for passage of another sanctions resolution.

American diplomats and the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, said last week that Brazil’s efforts were the “last chance” to avoid sanctions.

Iran has insisted that its nuclear work is intended only for peaceful purposes like energy production. But the United Nations nuclear monitoring agency has said that Iran has not cooperated fully with its investigation into whether the country’s program is also intended to develop nuclear weapons.

On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton predicted that Mr. da Silva’s mediation effort would fail. She said Iran could be forced to prove its nuclear program was peaceful only with a new round of United Nations sanctions.

“Every step of the way has demonstrated clearly to the world that Iran is not participating in the international arena in the way that we had asked them to do and that they continued to pursue their nuclear program,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters.