page_title: Nuclear activities in Brazil
section_title: 2010 Joint Tehran Declaration (Brazil, Iran and Turkey)
hierarchical_section_title: Nuclear activities in Brazil / Main controversies / 2010 Joint Tehran Declaration (Brazil, Iran and Turkey)
caption_attribution_description: English: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva arrives in Iran. Tehran, Iran - President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is greeted by the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Ricardo Stuckert / PR). Português: Presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva chega ao Irã. Teerã, Irã - Presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva é recebido pelo presidente do Irã, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Ricardo Stuckert / PR). فارسی: لوئیس ایناسیو لولا داسیلوا، رئیس‌جمور برزیل که در ایران مورد استقبال محمود احمدی‌نژاد، رئیس‌جمهور این کشور قرار گرفته است.
context_page_description: Nuclear energy accounts for about 3% of Brazil's electricity. It is produced by two pressurized water reactor reactors at Angra, which is the country's sole nuclear power plant. Construction of a third reactor begun on 1 June 2010, but it is currently stalled. The sole Brazilian company in charge of nuclear energy production is Eletronuclear.
  Uranium exploration, production and export in Brazil is under state control through Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil although the government has announced it is ready to involve the private sector in the nuclear fuel industry.
context_section_description: The nuclear program of Iran has been the topic of heated international argument since 2003. As a major player in the global non-proliferation regime, the United States has been one of the main actors in this debate.
  During the Lula administration (2003-2011), Brazil promoted an emphatic defense of the right of Iran, as an NPT signatory, to enrich uranium. While this action was in accordance with the argument usually put forward by Brazil – that affirms developing countries can acquire technology considered important for their national development – it represented a source of disagreement between Brazil and the United States. According to reports of then-Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, the United States had been trying to impress on Brazil the need to convince Iran to come to an agreement with the IAEA regarding its nuclear program. Following the U.S. requests, Brazilian diplomats, together with their Turkish counterparts, brokered an agreement with Iran which became public in May 2010. The deal was formalized via the tripartite Tehran Declaration that allowed Iran to send 1,200 kilograms of 3.5%-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for 20%-enriched nuclear fuel for a scientific reactor.
  However, the initiative failed to win support of the five permanent members (P-5) of the United Nations Security Council. One reason cited was that the agreed-upon quantity of 1,200 kilograms was considered too low because it did not take into account Iran's accumulation of a larger amount of low-enriched uranium in the time since the IAEA first proposed the agreement, in late 2009. Additionally, the Tehran Declaration did not address Iran's production of 20%-enriched uranium. Thus, the United States and other Western powers worried that this agreement did not require Iran to curtail its enrichment program or even resolve outstanding questions about the possible military purposes of its nuclear activities. Shortly after the deal was announced, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the P-5 had agreed on a draft text for a new set of sanctions on Iran.
  The rejection of this joint venture with Iran and Turkey was a big source of frustration for Brazilian diplomacy. However, despite being called naïve and accused of prolonging a controversial activity of a dubious regime, President Lula maintained that "engaging Iran – not isolating it – was the best way to push for peace and stability in the Middle East." In Lula's view, ‘‘the existence of weapons of mass destruction is what makes the world more dangerous, not agreements with Iran."
caption: Lula and Ahmadinejad 2010
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