Iran wants new nuclear fuel talks, deepening doubts

Western diplomats say Iran has asked to receive fuel for a Tehran reactor making radio-isotopes for cancer treatment before shipping out any of its own LEU. Iran also wants to transfer the enriched uranium in small shipments, not in one go.

Diplomats say the Iranian demands are unacceptable because the deal in this form would not lessen Tehran's potential to turn LEU into bomb-grade nuclear fuel if it wanted, a scenario the West fears due to Iran's history of nuclear secrecy.

"The messages from Tehran are negative, I am quite pessimistic," one European diplomat said.

(Additional reporting by Mark Heinrich in Vienna, Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations, Sophie Hardach in Paris and Razak Ahmad in Kuala Lumpur; editing by David Stamp)