国际英语新闻：West holds up time over supplying Tehran with nuclear fuel: MP

TEHRAN, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- An Iranian lawmaker said on Tuesday that West is holding up time over supplying nuclear fuel for Tehran's reactor, the official IRNA news agency reported.

    "Westerners move in line with time killing so that Iran will not eventually be able to have necessary options for fuel supply for Tehran reactor," Kazem Jalali, the spokesman of parliament's Commission on National Security and Foreign Policy was quoted as saying.

    "So, the deadline Iran has set for the purpose is logical," said Jalali.

    Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Sunday that the West should decide whether it wants to sell nuclear fuel to Iran or swap nuclear fuel for Iran's low-enriched uranium.

    "The international community has only one more month to make a decision. Otherwise, Tehran will enrich uranium to a higher purity needed for the fuel," Mottaki said, adding that "This is an ultimatum."

    Jalali said that there are only two alternatives for supplying fuel to Tehran reactor, Westerners should either sell it to Iran or let Tehran meet its need by using due technology.

    Tehran rejected a December 31 deadline set by the United States for Iran to accept a deal of swapping its low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel outside Iran.

    Under a draft deal brokered by the UN nuclear watchdog, most of Iran's existing low-grade enriched uranium should be shipped to Russia and France by the end of the year, where it would be processed into fuel rods with the purity of 20 percent.

    The higher-level enriched uranium will be transported back to Iran to be used in a research reactor in Tehran for the manufacture of medical radioisotopes, according to the draft.

    The United States and its Western allies have been accusing Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons under the disguise of civilian nuclear power. Iran has denied the accusation and stressed its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.