During a 45-minute speech, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner claimed that in 2010 a former Obama administration official asked Argentina to “provide the Islamic Republic of Iran with nuclear fuel” under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
According to Kirchner, Gary Samone, who was the White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction at the time, visited Argentina in the hopes of convincing them to provide reactor fuel. When the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs asked for the request in writing, they never heard from Samone again.
There is a backstory to this, as Kirchner explained. In 1987, Argentina supplied Iran with nuclear fuel for their “Teheran” reactor. Samone told Hector Timmerman, the Argentine Foreign Minister, that negotiations with Iran to end or limit its nuclear enrichment program had begun and that the “Teheran” reactor was a sticking point. Iranian negotiators wouldn’t go forward without the fuel. And Argentina was the United States’ answer.
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