MOSCOW. Sept 2 (Interfax-AVN) - Moscow and Tehran should soon sign an agreement on returning spent nuclear fuel from Iran to Russia, Iranian Ambassador to Russia Gholamreza Shafei said at a Thursday news conference in reply to a question by Interfax.
"This should happen very soon. All fundamental problems have been resolved, and therefore the signing of the agreement should not take a lot of time," he said.
The parties are continuing to settle a number of commercial issues, in particular, the cost for transporting, storing, and processing spent nuclear fuel, the ambassador said.
"Iran agrees to bear the cost of transportation and storage of the fuel," he said.
The spent nuclear fuel will be processed after Iran discontinues to be its owner, he said.
Iran plans to produce its own nuclear fuel in the future, which does not run counter to its international commitments, the diplomat said.
"All the issues pertaining to uranium enrichment and the use of centrifuges are related to the production of such fuel in Iran. This concerns equipment for obtaining nuclear fuel. There is no international ban on this," Shafei said.