Comments (0)Iranian Negotiators Agree to Nuclear Enrichment Plan
October 23, 2009Jerusalem
JTA Wire Service
Iranian negotiators reportedly have agreed to a draft of an accord that would allow most of its nuclear fuel to be enriched in Russia.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, said Wednesday that the Iranian negotiators meeting in Vienna had accepted the draft agreement, but added that it would have to be approved by the Iranian and U.S. governments.
Under the agreement, the 2,600 pounds of nuclear fuel would be further enriched in Russia and then sent back to Tehran for use in a reactor that refines nuclear fuel for medical purposes, according to The New York Times. The converted nuclear fuel would be difficult to use in a weapon.
ElBaradei’s announcement comes after the second day of negotiations in Vienna hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency were delayed as the delegations met for consultations.
The delay Tuesday came following a news conference by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in which he stated that “Iran will never abandon its legal and obvious right” to nuclear technology.
“The meetings with world powers and their behavior shows that Iran’s right to have peaceful nuclear technology has been accepted by them,” Mottaki said.
The meeting also was delayed after Iran announced Tuesday that France must be excluded from a final deal.
The United States, France and Russia began meeting Monday with Iranian diplomats to discuss a deal by which a third country, namely Russia, would convert about 2,600 pounds of Iran’s low-enriched uranium into fuel for a nuclear reactor to be used for medical purposes.
A tentative deal on the plan was announced at a meeting of Tehran officials and Western powers in Geneva at the beginning of the month.
China Says it Will Oppose Goldstone Discussion
China will oppose discussion of the Goldstone report in the United Nations Security Council, Chinese lawmakers told a visiting Israeli delegation.
Beijing also will oppose allowing the report to be used as the basis for lawsuits against Israel and Israelis in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the officials on Wednesday told Israeli lawmaker Tzachi Hanegbi, who is leading a delegation from the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Hanegbi severely criticized China for voting to approve a resolution endorsing the Goldstone report in the U.N. Human Rights Council last week.
The Chinese lawmakers told the Israeli delegation that they believed the Human Rights Council was capable of looking into the report without the involvement of other international organizations, according to reports.
German ‘Ghetto Pension’ Requests to be Re-evaluated
Nearly 70,000 rejected German Social Security claims from Holocaust survivors are to be reopened.
A monitoring group established by the Claims Conference and German Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs will check claims turned down since 2002, with the oldest claimants being processed first, according to a statement issued Tuesday by the Claims Conference.
The re-evaluations follow years of lobbying and three court decisions this summer that liberalized payment criteria for Germany’s 2002 “ghetto pension” law, which applies to survivors of Nazi occupied or incorporated ghettos who performed “voluntary and remunerated work.”
The Claims Conference, which does not process or administer the claims, joined with other survivor organizations to press for the changes because “inconsistent and overly strict interpretation of eligibility criteria by local German authorities resulted in widespread denial of claims.”
As of now, the kind of payment received for work in ghettos—such as money, food or clothes—is no longer a decisive factor, and remuneration need not have been provided directly to the claimant. In addition, ghettos in Transnistria are to be covered.
Only those already receiving pensions must apply in writing if they think a reassessment is in order.
More information is available on the Claims Conference Web site.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.