IAEA Director General Mohammed El Baradei (L) with French Ambassador to the IAEA Florence Margin (R) arrive at the meeting of representatives from France, Iran, Russia and the United States at Agency's headquarters in Vienna on October 20, 2009. (Samuel Kubani/AFP/Getty Images)
The negotiations, which began on Monday, faltered after the Islamic Republic said it would not agree to curb uranium enrichment, something seen by the powers as essential to make any accord work, and said France could not be part of a deal.
"I believe that we are making progress. It is maybe slower than I expected. But we are moving forward and we are going to meet tomorrow at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT)," Mohamed ElBaradei said after a day of delay in resuming the high-stakes talks.
Despite the setback, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said headway was made in separate bilateral consultations involving Iran, France, Russia and the United States and a deal remained within reach.
"It's a complex process as you understand. There is the technical aspect, many technical issues that we have to analyse. There is of course a question of confidence-building guarantees," he told reporters on Tuesday night.
ElBaradei spoke after a brief reunion of all parties in the closed meeting hall. He left without taking questions.
The negotiations, presided over by ElBaradei, offered the first chance to build on a tentative agreement reached on Oct. 1 to defuse a long standoff over fears Iran's nuclear energy campaign is a front for efforts to develop atomic bombs.
At those Geneva talks, Iran agreed in principle to send low-enriched uranium to Russia and France for further refinement. This would be converted into fuel rods to replenish dwindling fuel stocks of a Tehran reactor that makes radioisotopes for cancer care.
But the negotiations failed to resume on Tuesday morning after Tehran suddenly refused to deal directly with France.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and other officials in Tehran accused Paris of reneging on contracts to deliver nuclear materials in the past.
A senior diplomat familiar with the talks said the parties were considering a face-saving compromise drafted by the IAEA. Under this, Iran would sign a contract with Russia which would then would sub-contract further work to France.
Other tough issues to settle included how much low-enriched uranium (LEU) Iran would send out, and when. Western powers wanted this to be 75 percent of its declared stockpile, and to be shipped abroad in one consignment before the end of the year.
Iran has yet to respond publicly to the proposal, raising Western concerns it was playing for time as it has in the past.
The West hopes that farming out a large amount of Iran's LEU reserve for reprocessing into fuel for the medical isotope reactor—using technology Iran lacks—will minimise the risk of Iran refining the material to high purity suitable for bombs.
Western diplomats say Tehran must ultimately curb the programme to dispel fears of a growing LEU stockpile being further enriched, covertly, to produce nuclear weapons.
But Mottaki said Iran would not curtail enrichment as part of the LEU deal, as demanded by the U.N. Security Council which has imposed some sanctions on Iran.
"Iran will continue its uranium enrichment. It is not linked to buying fuel from abroad," he told a news conference.
"The meetings with world powers and their behaviour shows that Iran's right to have peaceful nuclear technology has been accepted by them. Iran will never abandon its legal and obvious right," he added.
LEU is used as fuel for nuclear reactors, while a nuclear bomb requires highly enriched uranium. The West fears Iran's declared civilian nuclear energy programme is a front for producing fissile material for atomic bombs. Iran denies this.
Mottaki said Iran did not need France for the fuel plan.
"There are Russia, America ... I believe these countries are enough. Not too many countries are needed to provide Iran with the fuel," he said. "France, based on its shortcomings to fulfil its obligations in the past, is not a trustworthy party to provide fuel for Iran."
Iran has been hit by three rounds of U.N. sanctions for refusing to halt enrichment-related work. It said on Monday it would not hesitate to produce higher enriched uranium on its territory if the talks failed in Vienna.
Iran won a reprieve from harsher U.N. sanctions by agreeing on Oct. 1 to IAEA inspections of a hitherto hidden enrichment site and to sending LEU abroad to ease concerns that it could achieve nuclear weapons "breakout" capacity in short order.
