Iran must respond on UN nuclear offer: EU's Ashton

(MUNICH) - Iran must formally respond to UN atomic agency proposals to send uranium abroad for enrichment in order to "build badly needed confidence," EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Saturday.

"Iran must now respond to the director general of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)... There is a proposal on the table, a creative attempt to build confidence with Iran, on a practical cooperation in the nuclear area."

"Years of talks by my predecessor Javier Solana and his colleagues took place against a backdrop of work that was continuing contrary to the rules of the safeguard system by which we are all bound," Ashton said.

The proposals "are an attempt to build badly needed confidence," Ashton said.

The proposals involved Iran shipping low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia and France to be further purified into reactor fuel, which would then be used in a research reactor in Tehran.

The Islamic republic agreed in principle to the offer in October, but later appeared to reject the deal and said it preferred a gradual swap for fuel -- preferably on Iranian soil.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad then said in a television interview late on Tuesday that Tehran would have "no problem" with the proposal, but Western powers, suspecting a delaying tactic to avert a fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions, urged him to send a formal response to the IAEA.