Iran open to compromise

WASHINGTON – Iran’s top nuclear official offered hope that Tehran may be flexible in upcoming international talks about its disputed nuclear program, indicating that the regime may be willing to halt production of the enriched uranium that most worries the West.

Fereydoun Abbasi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said in an Iranian TV interview broadcast Monday that Iran wants only enough 20 percent enriched uranium for its medical needs.

The United States and its European allies are worried that Iran could refine the 20 percent enriched uranium it is producing into weapons-grade fuel for a nuclear bomb in a matter of months.

Talks are scheduled to begin Friday in Istanbul, Turkey, between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia – plus Germany.

The negotiations will focus on demands by Washington and its allies that Iran stop producing 20 percent enriched uranium, send its existing stockpile abroad, and provide a full accounting of its partially covert nuclear development program, as required under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

As the talks have neared, Iranian officials have given little indication that they might compromise on a program they insist is for peaceful purposes. Until Sunday it was not even clear if Iran would attend the session, which resumes a dialogue that broke off in January 2011.

One U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said Iranian officials had given conflicting signals for days, and that Iran is known for making gestures that mean little when negotiations begin.

Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Iran would not heed preconditions set by other countries.

“We will honestly try to have the two sides conclude with a win-win situation in which Iran achieves its rights while removing concerns of the five permanent Security Council members and Germany,” Salehi said, according to the Associated Press.