MUNICH — Western powers pressured Tehran on Saturday to commit to a proposal designed to dispel concerns about its nuclear program, dismissing conciliatory comments from Iranian officials as mere rhetoric meant to forestall new sanctions.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on a trip to Turkey, said it might be time to take a “different tack” with Iran. Other top defense officials at the Munich Security Conference rejected overtures from Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as nothing new.
The frustration reflects concerns that Iran will use the proposal only to buy more time to advance its nuclear ambitions and thwart sanctions.
Standing in the way of new sanctions, however, is China, whose Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Munich on Friday urged the world to be patient and keep up diplomatic efforts with Iran.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has proposed to have Iran export a significant amount of low-enriched uranium for processing, to be returned as refined fuel rods that can power reactors but cannot be readily turned into weapons-grade material.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week suggested he would agree to the proposal, but it was unclear how much of a concession his comments represented.
Among other things, his time frame of four or five months appeared to fall short of the year that Western officials say it would take for Iran’s enriched fuel to be turned into fuel rods for the reactor. He also did not address whether his country was ready to ship out most of its stockpile in one batch — another condition set by the six world powers, the five Security Council nations and Germany, endorsing the fuel swap.
