The Associated Press has claimed Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani said that his nation has a “surplus” of enriched uranium and is willing to discuss trading some of it as part of next week’s P5+1 talks.
Other Iranian MPs came out to deny the reports later in the day, saying the reports were “fundamentally inaccurate.” It is unclear where that comment came from, but Larijani has been giving interviews to Western media outlets.
Iran has been extremely successful in making fuel for its medical isotopes reactor, and that adds to speculation that the 20 percent uranium enrichment, which Iran is planning to phase out as part of the deal, might indeed have produced some extraneous uranium that the nation no longer needs.
On the other hand Larijani may have been speaking not of uranium itself, but of enrichment capacity, in which case his comments would be in keeping with yesterday’s reports of an offer coming to shut down parts of the enrichment program in return for easing sanctions.