Iran makes new nuclear offer

IRAN: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran was ready to send its enriched uranium abroad in exchange for nuclear fuel, and a U.S. official said Washington was prepared to listen if Iran was making a new offer to break an impasse over its disputed nuclear program.

The president appeared for the first time to drop long-standing conditions Tehran had set for accepting a U.N.-brokered proposal that the West hopes will stop enriched uranium being used to build atomic bombs in Iran.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has brokered the proposed plan under which Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons, would send its low-enriched uranium abroad in exchange for more highly enriched fuel for a medical research reactor.

"We have no problem sending our enriched uranium abroad," Ahmadinejad told state television.

"We say: we will give you our 3.5 percent enriched uranium and will get the fuel. It may take 4 to 5 months until we get the fuel. TEHRAN, Reuters