Iran gives West ultimatum to accept uranium swap proposal

Iran's foreign minister gave the West a one-month "ultimatum" yesterday to accept a uranium swap, warning that it will produce its own nuclear fuel for a Tehran reactor if there is no deal.

"The international community has just one month left to decide whether or not it will accept Iran's conditions," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted by state television as saying.

"This is an ultimatum."

Iran, which rejected a December 31 deadline to accept a UN-brokered deal, said last Tuesday it was ready to swap abroad its low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel, while insisting that the exchange happen in stages.

Tehran had already rejected a proposal by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to ship most of its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France for processing into fuel for the research reactor.

But Iran said it was ready for a fuel swap "in several stages", and in late December Mottaki said Iran is open to exchanging uranium on Turkish soil.

Earlier in December, Iran had proposed to exchange 400 kilos of uranium on its Gulf island of Kish but was bluntly dismissed by the US, with the IAEA already having ruled out swap on Iranian soil.

World powers have been pushing for Iran to accept the UN-brokered deal and are also mulling plans to impose fresh UN sanctions against Tehran after the Islamic republic dismissed the year-end deadline.

Iran is already under three sets of UN sanctions for refusing to abandon its sensitive programme of uranium enrichment, the process which produces nuclear fuel or, in highly extended form, the fissile core of an atomic bomb.