Iran rejects sending uranium abroad,considers swaps

TEHRAN Nov 18 (Reuters) - Iran's foreign minister was quoted on Wednesday as saying that Tehran would not send its enriched uranium abroad for further processing but would consider swapping it for nuclear fuel within its borders.

"Surely we will not send our 3.5 percent fuel abroad but can review swapping it simultaneously with nuclear fuel inside Iran," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the ISNA students' news agency.

A draft deal brokered by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, calls on Iran to send some 75 percent of its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France to be turned into fuel for a Tehran medical research reactor.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi)