Hmmmmm: Iran ready to cooperate on nuclear program?

The deal, which Iran formally rejected weeks ago, would swap low-enriched uranium for fuel for a research reactor that produces medical isotopes. “If we allow them to take it, there is no problem,” Ahmadinejad said on state TV. “We sign a contract to give 3.5 percent enriched uranium and receive 20 percent enriched ones after four or five months.”

U.S. officials reacted cautiously to Ahmadinejad’s remarks, which came a day after France assumed the presidency of the U.N. Security Council. France, along with the United States, Britain and Germany, are pushing hard for additional Security Council sanctions against Tehran for failing to agree to talks on its nuclear ambitions; any sudden interest in diplomacy by Iran might be intended to persuade China, a skeptic of sanctions, to block them, diplomats said. U.S. officials had viewed the proposal involving the research reactor as a test of whether a broader diplomatic deal could be broached on Iran’s nuclear programs.

“There is a still a deal on the table. The question is: Is he prepared to say yes,” said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. He noted that when Iranian diplomats met with U.S. officials in Geneva in October, “they said yes, and then they said no.”