FOREIGN MINISTRY SAYS NO NEW OFFER MADE TO LARIJANI

S E C R E T TOKYO 000386 SIPDIS DEPT FOR NEA/IR, ISN/RA AND EAP/J, NSC FOR DANIEL RUSSEL E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/25/2020 TAGS: PREL PARM KNNP ETRD IR JA SUBJECT: FOREIGN MINISTRY SAYS NO NEW OFFER MADE TO LARIJANI REF: A. TOKYO 341 ¶B. TOKYO 30 Classified By: Classified by Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Marc Wall p er reasons 1.4(b) and (d). 1.(S) Despite published reports to the contrary, including an interview given by visiting Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani to the leading business newpaper Nikkei Shimbun, MOFA told the Embassy February 25 that the GOJ did not propose to Larijani that Japan would consider further enriching Iran's Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) for use in fuel elements, nor did the GOJ propose that Japan would manufacture fuel assemblies. In an interview published February 25, Larijani said that Japan had offered "late last year" to provide Iran uranium "enriched and processed" for nuclear power generation and Iran was studying this offer. ¶2. (S) As reported in ref B, during the December visit of Supreme Council for National Security Secretary-General Saeed Jalili, Japan informally proposed that in order to break the current stalemate in Iran's discussions with the P5 plus 1 on the plan to ship Iran's LEU to Russia for further enrichment and then to France for reprocessing into fuel elements for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR),Iran could ship its LEU to Japan, which would store and safeguard it. Once the LEU was in Japan, then third countries could provide fuel for the TRR. Media reporting in the Larijani Nikkei interview and related wire reports suggests that Japan has offered to enrich Iran's LEU and manufacture the fuel elements itself within Japan. ¶3. (S) Embassy Poloff spoke with MOFA Second Middle East Division Iran Desk Chief Junichi Sumi February 25 to clarify the media reports. Sumi was emphatic that the published reports were incorrect and stressed that Japan's proposal was unchanged from December. He made very clear that Japan had no intention of enriching LEU for Iran, and that Japan had only offered to store the LEU. Sumi said that it was the GOJ view that acting as a third country storage site was a potential confidence-building measure and would be consistent with the spirit of the IAEA proposal; enriching uranium inside Japan would not. Sumi was uncertain whether the incorrect media reports were the result of Larijani mis-characterizing the December GOJ proposal or the reporters' misunderstanding of the details of proposal. Either way, he sought to assuage U.S. concerns that Japan had made any new offer. ¶4. (U) Separately, Foreign Minister Okada told Larijani February 24 that Iran should suspend its nuclear enrichment activities and take "bold" actions to resolve the international community's doubts about its nuclear program, according to published media reports. In response, Larijani was reported to have maintained the Iranian position that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, stating that sanctions would be in no one,s interest and that it would be better to resolve the matter through discussions. Okada was also quoted as telling Larijani that "if a resolution against Iran is adopted at the UN Security Council, Japan cannot help but to comply with it. To avoid such a situation, there is not much time left." ROOS