Iran's foreign minister says his country may agree to ship just part of its stockpile of low enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment as per a United Nations-drafted plan.
Monday's comments by Manouchehr Mottaki are the first official indication that Tehran may at least partly agree to a UN-drafted plan to ship much of Iran's uranium to Russia for further enrichment.
Mottaki said Iran was weighing between the UN-drafted plan or buying its own enriched uranium.
In either case, Iran would continue to enrich its own uranium as well, he said.
The West sees the UN-brokered plan as a way to ease concerns that Iranian labs could push the uranium enrichment to higher, weapon-grade levels.
Iran claims it only seeks peaceful nuclear energy.