Iran would get reactors as part of nuclear deal

VIENNA – Western powers are offering Tehran high-tech reactors under a proposed nuclear agreement, a confidential document says, but a defiant speech by Iran’s supreme leader less than a week before a negotiating deadline casts doubt on whether he’s willing to make the necessary concessions to seal a deal.

The talks, which resumed Wednesday in Vienna on restraining any Iranian efforts to make atomic arms, appeared to be behind schedule judging by the draft document obtained by the Associated Press.

The draft, one of several technical appendices meant to accompany the main body of any deal, has bracketed text in dozens of places where disagreements remain.

Technical cooperation is the least controversial issue at the talks, and the number of brackets suggest the sides have a ways to go not only on that topic but also more contentious disputes before the June 30 deadline for a deal.

Iran’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Tuesday rejected a long-term freeze on nuclear research and supported the idea of barring international inspectors from military sites. Khamenei, in comments broadcast on Iranian state television, also said Iran would sign a final deal only if all economic sanctions on the country were first lifted. The preliminary deal calls for sanctions to be lifted gradually after an agreement is finalized.

Secretary of State John Kerry dismissed Khamenei’s remarks, saying Wednesday they were for “domestic political consumption.” He said that if Iran did backtrack on commitments made in an April outline there would be no deal.

Kerry said neither he nor President Barack Obama would negotiate in public. “I am not tweeting,” he said. “I am not making speeches, neither is President Obama.”

In another sign the Islamic Republic may be toughening its stance, Iran’s Guardian Council on Wednesday enacted legislation banning access to military sites and scientists, according to state TV.

Both Washington and the International Atomic Energy Agency – the U.N. monitor of Iranian compliance to any deal – say IAEA experts need such access to watch Tehran’s present nuclear programs and to breathe life into a long-stalled investigation of suspicions that Iran worked on nuclear arms in previous years.

The West has held out the prospect of providing Iran peaceful nuclear technology in the nearly decadelong effort to reduce Tehran’s ability to make nuclear weapons. But the scope of the help now being offered in the draft displeases U.S. congressional critics who say Washington is giving away too much.

Iran denies any interest in – or work on – nuclear weapons and is prepared to make concessions on limits in exchange for relief from billions of dollars in economic penalties. Beyond a pact limiting Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon for at least 10 years, the U.S. and its negotiating partners hope to eliminate any grounds for Iran to argue that it needs to expand programs that could be used to make such arms once an agreement expired.

To that end, the draft, entitled “Civil Nuclear Cooperation,” promises to supply Iran with light-water nuclear reactors instead of its nearly completed heavy-water facility at Arak, which could produce enough plutonium for several bombs a year if completed as planned.