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Enrichment Freeze at Fordow Key to Progress in Iran Nuclear Talks

The West’s current goal in dealing with Iran is not to resolve the crisis but to manage it by preventing the development of Iranian nuclear weapons. The best way to reassure the P5+1 that Iran cannot  “dash to a bomb” is by freezing its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium, especially at the well-protected Fordow facility. Barbara Slavin reports.
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran. 

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, claps as he looks at an object representing nuclear fuel which will be used in Tehran's research reactor during a ceremony to mark the Fourth National Anniversary of Nuclear Technology, in Tehran April 9, 2010. Iran announced Friday it had developed faster centrifuges for uranium enrichment, signall

As diplomats from Iran and the world’s big powers assemble in Istanbul on the inauspicious day of Friday 13, the key to managing the Iranian nuclear crisis lies deep in a mountain near the Shiite theological center of Qom.

There at a facility called Fordow, Iran has been enriching uranium to 20% U-235, the isotope that in 90% concentration can be used to make nuclear weapons.

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