BERLIN, Nov 2: Russia is prepared to host a nuclear fuel production joint venture with Iran, a plan that could help break a months-long deadlock in Tehran’s talks with France, Britain and Germany, diplomats said on Wednesday.

The European Union’s three biggest powers broke off talks with Iran in August after Tehran ended a suspension of sensitive nuclear activities that had been the cornerstone of a 2004 deal known as the Paris Agreement.

The EU has offered Tehran incentives to scrap its atomic fuel programme. Iran, which rejects U.S. and European accusations that it wants atom bombs, accuses the West of trying to rob it of its sovereign right to a full nuclear programme.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and others have been trying to find what several diplomats called a ‘face-saving solution’ that would allow the EU-Iran talks to resume and avoid worsening the standoff.

Under the new plan, which was conceived in Russia, Iran could conduct low-grade uranium processing work at its Isfahan uranium conversion plant, provided it agreed to fully suspend all other activities in line with the Paris Agreement.

Tehran would be permitted to produce uranium tetrafluoride (UF4) at Isfahan, a precursor to uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas.

The UF4 would then be shipped to Russia for conversion into UF6 and enrichment, an operation that would be a Russian-Iranian joint venture. Uranium needs to be enriched to create either atomic fuel for power plants or for weapons.

—Reuters