By Guy Faulconbridge and Parisa Hafezi
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Wednesday it was ready to remove nuclear materials from Iran and convert them into fuel as a potential way to help narrow differences between the United States and Iran over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme.
Tehran says it has the right to peaceful nuclear power, but its swiftly-advancing uranium enrichment programme has raised fears in the West and across the Gulf that it wants to build a nuclear weapon.
The fate of Iran’s uranium enrichment is at the heart of the disagreement between Washington and Tehran: U.S. President Donald Trump says that Iran cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, while Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Iran cannot abandon enrichment.
President Vladimir Putin told Trump in a phone call that he was ready to use Russia’s close partnership with Iran to help with negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme, the Kremlin said last week.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control and U.S. relations, told Russian media on Wednesday that efforts to reach a solution should be redoubled and that Moscow was willing to help with ideas and in practical ways.
“We are ready to provide assistance to both Washington and Tehran, not only politically, not only in the form of ideas that could be of use in the negotiation process, but also practically: for example, through the export of excess nuclear material produced by Iran and its subsequent adaptation to the production of fuel for reactors,” Ryabkov said.
The United States wants all of Iran’s highly enriched uranium (HEU) to be shipped out of the country. Tehran says it should only send out any excess amount above a ceiling that was agreed in a 2015 deal.
Russia, the world’s biggest nuclear power, does not want to see Iran acquire nuclear weapons, but believes it has every right to develop its own civilian nuclear programme and that any use of military force against it would be illegal and unacceptable.
Moscow has bought weapons from Iran for its war in Ukraine and signed a 20-year strategic partnership deal with Tehran earlier this year.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Guy FaulconbridgeEditing by Andrew Osborn)
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