At the talks between Iran and six major powers in Istanbul over the weekend, Iran said it was “no longer interested” in a fuel-swap deal proposed by Washington and the others, a senior Western diplomat said Monday.
In Istanbul, the lead Western negotiator, Catherine Ashton, said only that her Iranian counterpart, Saeed Jalili, had refused to engage on the details of a revised offer to swap most of Iran’s low-enriched uranium for fuel rods, to power a declining Tehran reactor that produces medical isotopes.
After she laid out the proposals, Ms. Ashton, the head of the delegation of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, told journalists on Saturday, “I made it clear that they should consider them and come back to us.” Asked whether Mr. Jalili agreed to do so, she said that he had listened, but “He didn’t say, ‘Oh, O.K., I will.’ ”
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