Iran says it's not willing to ship its uranium abroad, in nuclear talks hiccup

On Sunday, with a hard deadline for a framework agreement on its nuclear program two days away, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told the Iranian media that Iran will not ship its enriched uranium to Russia or anywhere else for conversion to rods incapable of fueling atomic weapons. "The export of stocks of enriched uranium is not in our program," he said. "There is no question of sending the stocks abroad."

Western diplomats noted that there are other ways of rendering Iran's nuclear fuel unusable in weapons, such as diluting it or turning it into pellets inside Iran. Outside experts disagree on how much of a setback this is for the talks, or even whether shipping the uranium abroad was ever really on the table. The issue of Iran's stockpile hasn't been part of this final round of negotiations, an unidentified senior State Department official said in a statement. "There have been viable options that have been under discussion for months, including shipping out the stockpile. But resolution is still being discussed."

Talks are expected to continue up until the deadline at the end of March 31.

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