Brazil says Iran nuclear stand-off can be resolved

A stand-off between Western countries and Iran over its nuclear program can still be resolved through the use of a third country as a site for uranium exchanges, Brazil’s foreign minister said on Tuesday.

Brazil has stressed the need to keep open a dialogue with Iran even as Western powers move toward a new round of sanctions in the United Nations Security Council over its suspected nuclear weapons program. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva welcomed Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Brazil last year and plans to visit Tehran in May.

That has raised concern in the West. But Brazil, which has a revolving seat on the U.N. Security Council, says sanctions would be counterproductive and that dialogue must continue.

Foreign Minister Celso Amorim denied that Brazil had a “special proximity” with Iran, saying the only difference with Western powers was that it believed an uranium exchange deal proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in October could still succeed through negotiations.

Under the IAEA deal, Iran would have exchanged low-enriched uranium for foreign-made nuclear fuel to power a reactor for medical purposes in Iran. After initially agreeing, Tehran said it would rather buy new fuel instead of sending its own uranium stocks abroad. It has made other counterproposals that have also been rejected.

“Iran doesn’t have confidence in some countries and those countries don’t have confidence in Iran. So what is the solution? Just as you have in private transactions, a faithful depositary that can be a third country,” Amorim told reporters in Rio de Janeiro after a meeting with Yukiya Amano, the new head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

While Tehran has insisted that any nuclear fuel exchange must happen on Iranian soil, Amorim said that position could change and that it was the only way to overcome distrust.

He did not specify which country should act as a neutral ground, but he ruled out Brazil.

Amano has raised Iran’s ire by taking a harder line on its nuclear program than his predecessor, calling on the country to stop stonewalling IAEA investigators’ requests for access and clarifications. He declined to comment on Brazil’s policy toward Iran.

Brazil is urging the IAEA to do more to jump-start the stalled talks with Iran.
“We believe the agency needs to take a more pro-active role — this is the most important international issue today,” said Roberto Jaguaribe, under-secretary for political affairs at the foreign ministry