TEHERAN: Iran can either buy nuclear fuel for a Teheran reactor or agree to a UN-drafted plan and send its uranium abroad for further processing, its foreign minister said yesterday.

"Iran's decision on the provision of necessary fuel for the Teheran reactor will be announced in the next few days," the official IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as saying.

Late on Friday, Iran said it would give an answer this week to the UN-drafted deal for it to cut an atomic stockpile the West fears could be used for weapons, ignoring an October 23 deadline and challenging the basis of the pact.