Turkey and Brazil's intensive diplomtaic efforts bear fruit: Iran agrees to uranium exchange in Istanbul

Turkey, Brazil and Iran have agreed on a joint formula about a nuclear swap deal between Iran and the Western powers, which could ease rising international tension over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. After nearly 18 hours of negotiations, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Brazilian and Iranian counterparts, Celso Amorim and Manouchehr Mottaki, over the weekend reached an agreement on how to revive the previously failed UN-backed nuclear swap deal between Iran and the West. The agreement made it clear that how much low-enriched uranium Iran would ship abroad in return for nuclear fuel rods for a medical research reactor in Tehran, and where the proposed nuclear fuel swap would take place. Under the agreement, Istanbul will be the venue of nuclear fuel exchange between Iran and the Western countries. Late yesterday night, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan left for Tehran. Erdogan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Brazilian President Luiz Inacia Lula da Sivla are set to make a joint statement about the details of the accord today. Manuchehr Motaki hosted two-and-a-half-hour trilateral meeting with Davutoglu and Amorim where a common formula for uranium exchange was debated. Brazil and Turkey, both non-permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have so far resisted US-led efforts to push through a fourth set of sanctions against Iran over its failure to heed repeated ultimatums to stop nuclear-enrichment activity, and exerted great efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the issue.