Senior Iranian MP casts doubt on atom fuel deal

By Parisa Hafezi

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A senior Iranian MP rejected on Thursday the idea of sending enriched uranium abroad for further processing, hinting at Tehran's reluctance to embrace a proposal meant to ease international tension over its nuclear ambitions.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog has presented a draft deal to Iran and three big powers for approval by Friday. It would cut Iran's quantity of low-enriched uranium (LEU) below the threshold that could yield a nuclear weapon if it were refined to high purity, while providing Iran with fuel for a nuclear medicine facility.

Diplomats say the plan would require Iran to send by the end of the year 1.2 tons of its known 1.5-tonne LEU stockpile to Russia, which would enrich it further. It would be shipped on to France for conversion into fuel plates, then returned to Iran to power a reactor making radio-isotopes for cancer care.

"They (the West) tell us: you give us your 3.5 percent enriched uranium and we will give you the fuel for the reactor. It is not acceptable to us," parliament's deputy speaker, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.

"The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) is obliged to provide us with the fuel, based on safeguards," he said.

The U.N. agency provides technical aid to member states for developing civilian nuclear energy. But U.N. sanctions on Iran ban trade in sensitive nuclear materials with the country.

Iran has yet to give an official reaction to the deal draft submitted by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on Wednesday after three days of talks in Vienna failed to finalize the deal as the IAEA, France, Russia and the United States had wanted.

Western diplomats said this was because Iran raised many questions about fundamental aspects of the plan which it had already agreed to in principle at talks in Geneva on October 1. ElBaradei's plan contains the key terms sought by the powers.