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Iranian officials have announced a new agreement, mediated by Brazil and Turkey, to send lowenriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for receiving nuclear fuel for an Iranian nuclear reactor.

The deal brokers, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazils president Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, announced the deal raising their arms in victory, hand in hand with Irans contested president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Before getting our hopes too high, however, it is important to remember that the agreement still needs international approval.

The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said Iran would present the details in a formal letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA within a week.

Iran will then wait for a positive response from the Vienna group, which he described as comprising the IAEA, France, Russia and the US.

Once their full agreement had been received, Iran would wait for a further month to start shipping its uranium to Turkey for safekeeping.

The exchange of fuel will take place under the supervision of the IAEA and Iran.

Otherwise, Iran warns, there will be no deal.

So the question is whether the international community is willing to send this potentially dangerous amount of highly enriched uranium to Iran.

Iran claims that its aim is to use the enriched fuel only for civilian purposes, but it is, at the same time, widely reported that to make further progress on its nuclear programme Iran is desperately in need of highly enriched uranium, which it is struggling to produce.

First, judging by the previous failed agreement in Vienna, the international community may not be keen on providing Iran with enriched uranium that might be used for military purposes.

Yet at the same time, the west has had too many failures in dealing with Iran and may not be sure of achieving full endorsement of its sanctions at the UN.

If that were the case, then the Vienna group will have to come up with a new deal, which may in turn require further negotiations on the details.

Second, this time the initiative is from Iran, so it does indicate a change of heart.

Iran has been increasingly concerned that it is reaching a dead end in acquiring the enriched uranium it so badly needs.

Its failed attempts at Vienna and Geneva raised internal criticismshence Irans further exploration of a deal through more trusted intermediaries such as Turkey and Brazil.

Third, the intermediation, especially by Brazil, seems to have the backing of both the US and Russia.

The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, described Lulas visit to Iran as the last chance to persuade Tehran before sanctions would be imposed.

A similar warning came from the US.

If Lula fails, the world powers efforts to persuade Iran to take responsibility for its nuclear programme should end, and sanctions against the country should be tightened, US state department spokesman Philip Crowley said last week.

Moreover, Iran was concerned about reports of good progress being made on securing support from all security council permanent membersincluding Chinaregarding further targeted sanctions against Iran.

Another reason for Irans choice of timing is that in midJune, the first anniversary of the contested presidential elections could bring new protests to the streets of Tehran and major cities.

Iran has tried to claim that it has dealt successfully with the crisis.

Yet the ruling establishment is well aware of the dangers of further escalation of tension.

It is also aware that international sanctions could have a negative impact on the economy and thus exasperate the protests.

So now that the international community has put its hopes in the success of the mission by Brazil and Turkey, and now that Iran is keener than ever before on making a deal, the prospects appear relatively positive.

However, the linchpin of the new agreement is the provision of enriched uranium to a country that has thus far been highly distrusted in the west.

By striking such a deal with the west, the Iranian regime will boast success at home and in the international arenaa success highly undeserved by a government with such an abysmal record on human rights; a government whose press is silenced and whose main opposition leaders are either in prison or barred from movement.

Inside Iran, any deal on nuclear exchange may thus be viewed on the one hand as positive, in that it may reduce the possibility of a military strike and the chance of imposing sanctions.

However, at the same time, a deal with Iranespecially if it is sealed with its contested president at this particular political juncture, after a year of brutal clampdown on oppositionwill be viewed by all supporters of civil society with deep scepticism and disappointment.

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An Iranian opposition group says it has new evidence that Iran is producing enriched uranium at a covert Defense Ministry facility in Tehran that has not been disclosed to United Nations inspectors.

The group, the National Council for Resistance in Iran, is planning to announce its finding in Paris on Wednesday.

The group says that inspection of the site would demonstrate that Iran is secretly trying to produce nuclear weapons even while promising to freeze a critical part of its declared nuclear program, which it maintains is intended purely for civilian purposes.

A senior official of the group, Muhammad Mohaddessin, said in a telephone interview late on Tuesday that the group had shared the new information very recently with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But he and other officials of the group said it had not discussed the matter with the United States government, and its claims could not be verified.

Irans mission to the United Nations did not return messages seeking comment on the assertion.

The group, based in Paris, is the political arm of the Peoples Mujahedeen, which is listed by the United States government as a terrorist organization because of its involvement in attacks on Americans in the 1970s.

But the group also has a successful track record in gathering intelligence on Iran, and was the first, in 2002, to disclose the existence of what was then the secret Iranian nuclear site at Natanz.

Mohaddessin said.

A spokesman in Washington for the National Council for Resistance in Iran provided a sevenpage summary of the assertion to The New York Times.

It says that the previously undisclosed site, in northeastern Tehran, covers 60 acres and houses biological and chemical warfare projects as well as nuclear activity.

It says that the site, known as the Modern Defensive Readiness and Technology Center, now houses operations previously carried out at another Defense Ministry site in Tehran that was destroyed by the Iranian government this year before international inspectors could visit it.

The assertion by the opposition group is surfacing in a week in which France, Britain and Germany announced a formal agreement with Iran committing the country to freeze a critical part of its nuclear program in exchange for an array of possible rewards.

As part of the pact with the Europeans, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had promised to suspend its uranium enrichment program starting a week from now.

But the agency said it could not rule out the possibility that Iran was conducting covert activities.

All the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities, the agency said in a report, referring to possible Iran nuclear weapons activity.

The agency is, however, not in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran.

The United States and European countries have argued that Irans nuclear program is intended to produce weapons.

Irans leadership has insisted that is not engaged in a nuclear weapons program but has the sovereign right to enrich uranium.

Officials of the opposition group said they believed that the Iranian Defense Ministry and Revolutionary Guards Corps were pursuing their program in secret and had not told Irans atomic energy agency of the existence of the facility in Tehran.

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Hill, right, the chief United States negotiator, shown in Beijing on Sunday.

The North Korea agreement, announced in Beijing on Wednesday, sets out the first specific timetable for the North to disclose all its nuclear programs and disable all facilities in return for 950,000 metric tons of fuel oil or its equivalent in economic aid.

The accord is the second stage of a sixnation pact reached in February, one that has continued to draw sharp criticism from conservatives who complain that the United States is rewarding North Korea for its test of a nuclear device last October.

The agreement has not yet resolved the contentious question of when North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons.

The agreement calls on the United States to begin the process of removing North Korea from a United States terrorism list in parallel with the Norths actions.

Conservative critics said the United States should not take North Korea off the terrorism list until it gave up all its nuclear weapons, and argued that the pact was far too conciliatory toward a nuclear power with alleged ties to international terrorism.

But the Bush administration has been eager to show diplomatic progress, and President Bush suggested that the deal should serve as an example to Iran, which has refused to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

Bush told a questioner that he might hold direct talks with Iran if it first froze enrichment of uranium.

Bush said.

John R.

Bolton, the administrations former ambassador to the United Nations, said the White House violated the original purpose of the diplomatic talks by agreeing to negotiate side agreements with North Korea about taking it off both the terrorism list and a second list of enemy nations forbidden from trading with the United States.

Bolton said.

Conservatives are also angry that the United States went ahead with the agreement despite a recent Israeli airstrike in Syria that Israeli officials have said was directed at nuclear material supplied by North Korea.

During meetings this past weekend, Christopher R.

Hill, the chief United States negotiator, told North Korea that one of the things it must disclose were details of whatever nuclear material it had been supplying to Syria, two senior Bush administration officials said.

Both officials, who asked that their names not be used because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the issue, said that North Korean officials denied giving Syria any assistance.

We did not achieve clarity on this issue, but that does not mean we do not intend to keep trying, one of the officials said.

We arent operating on faith.

On Monday, the Syrian president, Bashar alAssad, acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli incursion had been an attack, but said the target had been an empty warehouse.

Assad told the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Under the agreement reached in February, North Korea has shut down its Yongbyon nuclear plant, which, according to American intelligence estimates, has produced enough plutonium for as many as a halfdozen bombs.

Steven Lee Myers and Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting.

More Articles in WorldA version of this article appeared in print on October 4, 2007, on page A1 of the New York edition.

President Obama wants an agreement with Iran to prevent a Middle Eastern nuclear arms race, but its pushing Saudi Arabia toward its own nuke program.

Last month, Americas top Iran negotiator Wendy Sherman had some bad news for ambassadors from Americas Arab allies.

In a meeting with envoys from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf states, Sherman said that any bargain with Iran would likely leave Tehran, the Gulf states longtime enemy, with the capacity to enrich uranium, according to U.S.

officials briefed on the encounter.

Sherman regularly briefs these allies after diplomatic talks with Iran, but in recent weeks those conversations have been different.

While most of Americas Middle East allieswith the exception of Israelhave publicly supported the current Iran negotiations, behind the scenes, envoys from the region have expressed grave concerns that Iran could be left with a break out capacity to make the fuel for a nuclear weapon at a time of their choosing.

And now, one of the countries in the region without a fullblown nuclear programsSaudi Arabiamay be changing its mind.

Riyadh has a longstanding interest in nuclear power.

But Western and Israeli intelligence services are starting to see signs that this interest is growing more serious, and extends into nuclear enrichment.

Until recently, the pursuit of nuclear enrichmentor the fuel cyclewas considered by arms control experts as a telltale sign of a clandestine weapons program.

Nuclear fuel is sold to all members of the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty, but its far more costly to build the infrastructure and produce it indigenously.

Saudi Arabia appears to be getting more serious about going down that path.

If Saudi Arabia pursue nuclear enrichment even if there is an Iran deal, then the victory to curb atomic weapons that Obama has tried to achieve will be at least partially undone by his own diplomacy.

They view the developments in Iran very negatively.

Albright said in this particular case, an indigenous Saudi program is in the very early stages.

In 2012, the Saudi government announced plans to build 16 commercial reactors by 2030 and signed a technology agreement with China.

But Albright said he has heard concerns expressed by a European intelligence agency that Saudi Arabia in recent years has quietly been developing the engineering and scientific knowledge base to one day master the nuclear fuel cycle, or produce the fuel indigenously for the reactors its trying to build.

He said Saudi Arabia was hiring the scientists and engineers needed to build the cascades of centrifuges needed to produce nuclear fuel.

The Saudis are thinking through how do you create a deterrent through capability.

Late last year, the BBC reported that Saudi Arabia invested heavily in the Pakistani nuclear weapons program and could easily acquire nuclear technology or even weaponry if the Iranians cross a threshold.

Albright, however, said he did not think Saudi Arabia would likely try to acquire a weapon from Pakistan.

A senior administration official told The Daily Beast that the U.S.

was working to avoid enrichment proliferation in the Arab world and arguing to Gulf leaders that the Iranian nuclear deal is a net benefit for their own security.

This prospect of the Saudis beginning an enrichment program was broached earlier this month at the Munich Security Conference.

Sen.

Lindsey Graham asked Saudi Prince Turki al Faisal, the kingdoms powerful former intelligence chief, if any final agreement that allowed Iran to maintain an enrichment capability would cause Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to invoke their own right to enrich uranium.

Saudi Arabia is not alone in this regard.

Last month, Turkey and Japan began renegotiating a pact whereby Japan would provide Turkey with nuclear technology, but the deal could be modified later to give the Turks its own enrichment capability if Japan agreed.

The State Department has been working towards the longstanding U.S.stated goal of a nuclear free Middle East.

There have been three meetings of Arab countries and Israel in an attempt to set up a conference in Helsinki how to pursue a Middle East without WMD.

But theres no agreement on an agenda and no expectation the conference will commence any time soon.

Whether or not the rest of the Middle East begins to acquire nuclear weapons after Iran depends a great deal for now on the Iran negotiations.

Marie Harf, the deputy spokeswoman for the State Department, acknowledged that the United States is prepared to consider allowing Iran to keep a limited enrichment program.

If we can reach an understanding with Iran on strict constraints, then we can contemplate an arrangement that includes a very modest amount of enrichment that eliminates Irans capacity to obtain a nuclear weapon in any reasonable way.

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Britain, France and Germany ask for weeks grace as Tehran claims it has offer of nonaggression deal Britain, France and Germany are to promise Iran that it will not face military attack if it abandons enriching uranium, the key to building a nuclear bomb, a senior Iranian official said yesterday.

With Tehran and the three EU countries engaged in a delicate game of brinkmanship as a new hardline Iranian leader is sworn in as president, Hassan Rowhani, Irans chief nuclear negotiator, said the EU trio was to offer the nonaggression pledge as one incentive aimed at getting Iran to forfeit uranium enrichment.

Both sides in the longrunning dispute upped the ante at the weekend, with Tehran saying yesterday that it would resume some nuclear fuel activities today.

As we did not receive the EU proposal, naturally we will definitely resume work at the Isfahan plant tomorrow, a senior Iranian nuclear official told the Reuters news agency.

Meanwhile, Britain told Tehran it would need to wait another week for the details of the incentives.

Under an agreement with the EU last November, Iran suspended its uranium enrichment programme.

The EU troika agreed to deliver a set of political, economic and nuclear offers to Iran by the end of July or early August.

The deadline passed yesterday, according to the Iranians.

The EU requested a weeks extension because it wants to wait for the inauguration this week of the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, before revealing its hand and to see whether the new head of state, viewed as a radical, plans any changes to his nuclear policy or negotiating team.

British officials described the Iranian warning at the weekend as damaging prospects for an overall agreement.

Mr Rowhanis disclosures about a nonaggression pact came in a letter on the nuclear crisis to the outgoing president, Mohammed Khatami, reported yesterday by Irans state news agency.

It is not clear, however, whether Mr Rowhani, viewed as a moderate, will survive in position.

The same news agency reported last month that he had resigned.

Mr Rowhani also suggested that Iran should bow to EU demands by maintaining its freeze on uranium enrichment, a policy opposed by hardliners.

The Rowhani statement supporting a more pragmatic Iranian course may reflect an internal battle over the direction of nuclear policy under the new administration.

Moderates in Tehran, including President Khatami, have indicated they will preserve the enrichment freeze.

But the authorities are sending mixed signals.

They rejected the EU request for the extra week with the threat to restart part of the enrichment work by resuming uranium conversion.

The Iranians insist the work at Isfahantaking uranium concentrate and converting it into uranium hexafluoride gasis not uranium enrichment.

The Iranians are threatening to restart the work at Isfahan today, an act that would be viewed negatively by the Europeans and push the EU trio towards the US positionto penalise Iran by taking the dispute to the UN security council in New York.

The Americans and the Europeans view the Natanz enrichment plant as the centre of a potential bombbuilding capacity and want it closed down.

Diplomats following the dispute said all sides were engaged in manoeuvring.

Most are pessimistic that a sustainable deal will be reached and expect the dispute to escalate.

Amid this general climate of contempt, disappointment, and surprise, a senior EU official who went on to play a central role in her diplomacy offered a dissenting voice In four years time Ashton will be a major figure.

As dawn broke over Geneva on Sunday, that remark from November 2009, almost four years to the day, looked rather prescient.

The former Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament activist had brokered what looks like the biggest nuclear deescalation of an era, the diplomatic breakthrough of the decade, a problem and a dispute so intractable it could have led to a devastating war engulfing the entire Middle East and beyond.

The partial but significant defusing of the Iranian nuclear question is no doubt fundamentally due to the change of regime in Tehran this summer and the Obama administrations decision to get serious about talking to Iran for the first time in a generation.

But Ashtons dogged nurturing of years of onoff negotiations, what is described in Brussels as her emotional intelligence in steering and mediating the highly complex talks, paid off handsomely.

On Sunday, she found herself in the unaccustomed position of being deluged with compliments.

I would like to congratulate in particular Catherine Ashton, the high representative/vicepresident of the European commission, for this accomplishment, which is a result of her tireless engagement and dedication to the issue over the last four years, said her boss, Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European commission.

Herman Van Rompuy, who chairs European summits of national leaders, said I commend Ashton for her crucial roleas negotiator and cochair of the talks.

Her dedication and perseverance have been key in brokering this first agreement.

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, hugged Ashton tightly and paid tribute to her mediation skills as a persistent and dogged negotiator.

He added Im grateful for her stewardship of the talks.

Van Rompuy and Ashton got their jobs at the same time as a result of the Lisbon treaty, which created the posts of president of the European council and high representative for foreign and security policy.

Both were obscure figures, seemingly quite unsuited to leadership, strategic vision and policy formation.

Which was precisely what Europes main national leaders wanted.

They did not want a Tony Blair or a David Miliband or forceful German or French politicians strutting the international stage, setting the policy agenda and outshining them.

What they opted for and what they got were two quiet, methodical, effective fixers and mediators wrestling with some of the biggest issues of the age.

It fell to Van Rompuy to deal with quarrelling national leaders over the EUs worst ever crisisthe euro, the sovereign debt and financial turmoil.

Ashton had to build an EU diplomatic service from scratch, creating the EUs first new institution in a decade, amid some of the most vicious infighting within Brussels and between Brussels and the 28 member states.

Much of the criticism levelled at her was veiled sexism and it hurt.

She retreated into lowprofile workaholism, crisscrossing the globe, avoiding the media, assiduously and slowly building personal rapports with players such as the Iranians, Hillary Clinton and her Chinese counterpart.

In the Balkans, she inaugurated highly personalised diplomacy with the Serbian and Kosovo prime ministers that has also produced a littlenoticed, but major breakthrough.

A couple of weeks ago, Serbs, who refuse to recognise a breakaway, independent Kosovo, took part in local Kosovo elections for the first time, tacitly if grudgingly coming to terms with the legitimacy of Kosovo government.

It is quite certain that this would not have happened without Ashtons endless engagement and mediation between the two sides through dozens of meetings and latenight dinners.

Describing Ashtons approach to the Iranian negotiations, a former senior EU official said You can achieve all sorts of things if you let others take the credit.

The Balkans required a different tack Where she deserves enormous credit is on Serbia/Kosovo where her personal contribution cannot be overestimated.

By contrast though, EU foreign policy suffered a big blow last week when President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine abruptly ditched a strategic pact with Europe to have been sealed with Ashton at an EU summit in Lithuania this week.

In Geneva at the weekend and a fortnight ago, the format was a dizzying array of bilaterals, separate meetings between the Iranians and each of the six other countries as well as countless sessions between any two of the six countries.

Then there was the odd plenary session with everyone present.

In this complex multidimensional diplomacy, the only person almost always present with an overview of everything was Ashton.

It fell to her to summarise, cajole, narrow differences, take messages back and forth.

Much of the spadework in earlier negotiations was done by Robert Cooper, the retired British and EU foreign policy strategist and diplomat.

These days that role is filled by Helga Schmidt, the German EU diplomat who once headed the office of Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister and Greens leader.

The weekend breakthrough is but the first stage, lasting six months, towards a comprehensive settlement of the dispute with Iran.

Whether that can be achieved in the 11 months that remain to Ashton in her post is arguable.

In Europe they are queuing up, mainly men, to replace her next yearRadek Sikorski in Warsaw, Carl Bildt in Stockholm, while at the weekend there was talk of Frans Timmermans, the Dutch foreign minister.

She was surprised.

Iran and China signed an agreement Sunday to build a nuclear power plant near Teheran, Etellat newspaper reported today.

In a joint statement issued by the official Iranian press agency, IRNA, Chinese officials said it was the dawn of a new era of commercial and technical cooperation for the two countries.

Iran has aggressively sought access in the last two years to nuclear technology, with mixed success, in what is believed to be an attempt to develop nuclear weapons.

Teheran has maintained that its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes and within the framework of the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty.

But officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited last year, and they did not rule out a fullscale inspection.

The agreement with the Chinese was the first official deal for foreign assistance in building an atomic power plant in Iran.

Germany, Argentina, Brazil and others have turned Iran down under pressure from the United States.

Iran says the 300megawatt plant will provide electricity and reduce regular blackouts across the country.

According to staterun reports, China is to receive payment for the project in oil, steel and a series of unspecified Iranianmade products.