The United States and other world powers may be ready to allow Iran to keepsome of its uranium enrichment program intact instead of demanding its completedismantling, foreign government officials said last night.
Officials said some willingness to compromise might advance talks todayin the Turkish capital between senior Iranian envoy Ali Larijani and Javier Solana,the European Union's foreign policy chief.
Recognizing that Iran would never accept a complete freeze, the powers areconsidering "a new definition of enrichment," one diplomat said. Under theproposal, Iran would could keep some of its program intact without actuallyproducing enriched uranium.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack denied that the United States was"considering any proposals that would allow the Iranians to retain anyenrichment-related activities."
But another US official who spoke on condition of anonymity suggested therewas potentially more flexibility in Washington's position than previously.
"We purposely left open the possibility that direct talks could happen bybeing a little less committed to the requirements to have a meeting," said theofficial. He alluded to previous demands of an all-encompassing freeze on allenrichment related activities.
Iran is running more than 1,300 centrifuge machines at its undergroundfacility at Natanz. Its ultimate goal is to run 50,000 centrifuges a year,enough to churn out material for a network of nuclear power generators - or afull-scale nuclear weapons program.
The United States might accept a version of "cold standby" - allowing a setnumber of centrifuges to remain standing and assembled in series but notrunning, a diplomat said. Iran, he said, would likely push for keeping themachines operating, if not producing enriched uranium.
The six powers - United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - also want to reduce assembled and hooked-up centrifuges to less than 1,000.
A European official said hopes were that both sides could agree on at least"a different definition of suspension that we can work with."