'Moderate' Iran Demands Significant Enrichment Capability to Fuel Bushehr - Report.

'Moderate' Iran Demands Significant Enrichment Capability to Fuel Bushehr - Report.HT: UskowiOnIran.

Reuters quoting Western officials reported today that during their meeting in May with P5+1 in Vienna, Iranian negotiators demanded that Iran be allowed to produce all enriched uranium it would need to fuel the existing Bushehr nuclear power reactor, whose fuel is being provided by Russia.

Hence, the Iranians wanted to keep all their current centrifuges, some 10,000 in operation, and in addition add tens of thousands more centrifuges to be able to fuel the reactor.

The West considers operating more than few thousands centrifuges would give Iran breakout capability in short order.

With 50,000-100,000 centrifuges in operation, Iran could produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in matter of weeks if it so decides.

The next meeting between Iran and P5+1 is scheduled for mid-June. The difference between the numbers of centrifuges Iran wants and what the West is ready to accept is so great that agreeing to cut the difference in half might not work here, hence the failure of the May meeting.

The optimistic assessments for the talks coming out of Tehran in the past few days, however, might indicate that the Iranians are ready to offer new set of proposals to cut the difference significantly.