The United States is willing to give Iran time to decide whether to accept a U.N. draft deal that is meant to defuse nuclear tensions with world powers but has drawn Iranian objections, a U.S. diplomat said on Monday, Reuters reported.
The proposal for Iran to part with stocks of potential nuclear explosive material in exchange for fuel to keep a nuclear medicine facility running has stumbled on Iranian calls for amendments, but Iran has not rejected it outright.
Addressing Iran's misgivings over sending low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad before it receives reactor fuel in return, the U.N. nuclear agency chief has suggested Iran place the LEU in a friendly third country pending arrival of the fuel.
A senior Iranian official rejected the idea at the weekend.
But Tehran has yet to give a full, official reply on the proposal drafted by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei three weeks ago after consultations with Iran, France, Russia and the United States.
"There have been communications back and forth. We are in extra innings in these negotiations. That's sometimes the way these things go," said Glyn Davies, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA.
"We want to give some space to Iran to work through this. It's a tough issue for them, quite obviously, and we're hoping for an early positive answer from the Iranians."
Iran next year will run out of specially fabricated fuel imported in 1993 to run a Tehran research reactor that produces radioactive isotopes for cancer treatment.
World powers saw a "win-win" deal when they thought of providing the fuel needed in return for Iran cutting its LEU stockpile below the threshold at which it could be further refined into fissile material for a nuclear warhead.
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