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UK: Iran’s enrichment deal not flawed, says nuclear professor
London, (IRNA): An eminent British nuclear professor has welcomed Iran’s uranium fuel agreement with Turkey and Brazil as a potentially confidence-building measure.
“I am pleased that the deal has finally been agreed,” said Norman Dombey, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Sussex in southern England.
“I see the deal negotiated with Turkey and Brazil if successfully carried out as a useful confidence-building measure,” he said in an interview with IRNA.
The professor suggested that the deal, which was tabled to the IAEA on Monday, should be followed by a further agreement on enrichment operations in Iran.
“One possibility is to make Natanz and/or Qom a multinational Facility involving scientists from other states [like CERN in Geneva or the multinational fusion centre Iter in France]. Iran, Turkey and Brazil could sponsor such a facility,” he said.
News of the agreement, which is similar to last October’s offer of a fuel swap pact brokered through the Vienna Group, has been greeted with scepticism in the West.
Dombey suggested that this was “probably because the Western countries could not believe that Turkey and Brazil could successfully negotiate the deal.”
He also rejected claims that it was somehow technically flawed on the basis that one year is not enough time to supply fuel rods, even though this is the same period allowed in the original offer.
The professor was also cynical about US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisting that there are number of deficiencies in the proposal and that it does not answer the concerns of the international community.
“Any deficiencies in the deal as agreed were the same deficiencies in the deal last October when it was sponsored by the US” last year, he said.
Dombey was even more contemptuous about the response by Britain’s new prime minister David Cameron in threatening to “ratchet up” pressure with more sanctions on Iran, saying he had “just taken office and is not well informed.”
In the past, the professor was an outspoken critic of the way Bush Administration misused the nuclear issue in the lead up to the Iraq war, including pointing out that its nuclear threat in 1990 was far greater than in 2002.
London, (IRNA): An eminent British nuclear professor has welcomed Iran’s uranium fuel agreement with Turkey and Brazil as a potentially confidence-building measure.
“I am pleased that the deal has finally been agreed,” said Norman Dombey, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Sussex in southern England.
“I see the deal negotiated with Turkey and Brazil if successfully carried out as a useful confidence-building measure,” he said in an interview with IRNA.
The professor suggested that the deal, which was tabled to the IAEA on Monday, should be followed by a further agreement on enrichment operations in Iran.
“One possibility is to make Natanz and/or Qom a multinational Facility involving scientists from other states [like CERN in Geneva or the multinational fusion centre Iter in France]. Iran, Turkey and Brazil could sponsor such a facility,” he said.
News of the agreement, which is similar to last October’s offer of a fuel swap pact brokered through the Vienna Group, has been greeted with scepticism in the West.
Dombey suggested that this was “probably because the Western countries could not believe that Turkey and Brazil could successfully negotiate the deal.”
He also rejected claims that it was somehow technically flawed on the basis that one year is not enough time to supply fuel rods, even though this is the same period allowed in the original offer.
The professor was also cynical about US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisting that there are number of deficiencies in the proposal and that it does not answer the concerns of the international community.
“Any deficiencies in the deal as agreed were the same deficiencies in the deal last October when it was sponsored by the US” last year, he said.
Dombey was even more contemptuous about the response by Britain’s new prime minister David Cameron in threatening to “ratchet up” pressure with more sanctions on Iran, saying he had “just taken office and is not well informed.”
In the past, the professor was an outspoken critic of the way Bush Administration misused the nuclear issue in the lead up to the Iraq war, including pointing out that its nuclear threat in 1990 was far greater than in 2002.