A former guerrilla fighter jailed for 14 years and an ex-president were headed for a runoff for the presidency of Uruguay, after neither was expected to capture more than 50 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election. Jose Mujica, a former Marxist Tupamaro guerrilla who was the top vote-getter Sunday, will be challenged by Luis Alberto Lacalle, who served as president from 1990-1995. The runoff will be held November 29. Both candidates predicted victory at separate rallies Sunday night. ”We have ahead of us 30 days that are a fight but are not filled with hate for anyone,” Mujica said at a boisterous gathering in the capital, Montevideo. With 60 percent of the vote counted, Mujica was leading with 47.4 percent of the vote to 29.2 percent for Lacalle, news reports said. Another two candidates trailed with 17.8 percent and 2.5 percent of the vote. Only the top two vote-getters advanced to the runoff. Third-place candidate Pedro Bordaberry conceded defeat, saying he called Mujica and Lacalle to congratulate them. Bordaberry told his supporters he would vote for Lacalle. Speaking at his National Party headquarters, Lacalle thanked Bordaberry for his support. ”We believe we are a better option for security, for certainty, for peace, for dialog,” Lacalle said. Mujica had led in two polls last week, but both showed him falling short of the 50-percent-plus-one vote he needed to win outright. Known to his supporters as El Pepe, Mujica belongs to the same Broad Front Party as popular current President Tabare Vazquez Rosas. Both men are considered leftists. Lacalle is considered more conservative. Some analysts say neither Mujica nor Lacalle is likely to take Uruguay down a different path. ”You’d scarcely notice a difference in terms of which one of them is elected,” said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a liberal Washington-based think tank. Iran today stated it could endorse a U.N. deal for it to send potential nuclear fuel abroad for processing, the first official indication that Tehran could respond positively to the outline agreement. The remark by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was the most positive yet from a senior Iranian official and hinted at a shift in backroom debate between hardliners and moderates in the faction-ridden Iranian leadership on whether to accept the deal. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said it was urgent for world powers to make a lasting deal with Tehran to avert an Israeli strike over its disputed nuclear program. ”They (Israel) will not tolerate an Iranian bomb. We know that, all of us. So that is an additional risk and that is why we must decrease the tension and solve the problem. Hopefully we are going to stop this race to a confrontation,” Kouchner said. ”There is the time that Israel will offer us before reacting, because Israel will react as soon as they know clearly that there is a threat,” he added in an interview published by Britain’s Daily Telegraph daily. In Iran, Iranian officials said U.N. inspectors were given access to a hitherto secret uranium enrichment site bunkered inside a mountain near the holy Shi’ite city of Qom. The four senior experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency intended to verify Tehran’s stance that the plant was designed to make only low-enriched fuel for electricity, not the high-purity version for nuclear arms. The United States Monday revoked a visa of a minister for blocking reforms, sending a stern warning to the Grand Coalition Government to speed up implementation of Agenda Four. Three more top government officials are to be barred from travelling to Washington, US assistant secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said, and urged other countries to take similar action to up the pressure to avoid a recurrence of the December 2007 post election violence. “Today (Monday), the US government has taken the decision to revoke the visa of a senior Kenyan government official who has been obstructive to reforms,” he said. Mr Carson, in what could send shivers down the spines of many ministers and prominent personalities, said the US had decided to focus on individuals within the government who were hindering reforms outlined in the National Accord. “Not everyone in government is an obstacle to Agenda Four. We have focused our attention on individuals who have not used their offices well. We have had enough talk, we want action,” he said at the residence of the US embassy in Nairobi flanked by Ambassador Michael Ranneberger. He said he was delivering a message from President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who he said had held meeting with chief mediator Kofi Annan and vowed to ensure that Kenya does not go down the path of bloodshed again come 2012. It was significant that the US took the decision to bar a government minister even after President Kibaki wrote a letter to him last month protesting against America’s decision to target members of the Cabinet. It was not clear whether Mr Carson carried with him a reply to President Kibaki’s letter. The protest letter to White House was written days after the US dispatched letters to ministers and senior government officials on both sides of the coalition warning they could be slapped with travel bans if they continued on their path of obstructing reforms. On Monday, Mr Carson said: “We will not do business as usual with those who do not support reforms … those who support violence. We are considering similar action with three other government officials and the paper work is moving fast.” He added: “ This is a powerful signal be cause the individual cannot travel to the US for business or personal pleasure. The US is prepared to impose visa bans on those who stand against reforms. We hope other countries will follow.”