Region | Iran
Iran to reject fresh offer of incentives
Nuclear Talks should be based on respect for nations' rights, says official
- Reuters
- Published: 00:11 May 6, 2008
Tehran: Iran said on Monday it would not consider any incentives offered by world powers that violated its right to nuclear technology, ruling out a precondition to halt atomic work the West believes is aimed at making bombs.
Foreign ministers of six world powers agreed at London talks on Friday to offer a new package of incentives to coax Iran to halt uranium enrichment, a process which can make fuel for power plants or material for warheads.
Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, insists its enrichment activity is aimed at generating electricity, and says the programme is a national right that it will not give up.
"Those incentives that violate the Iranian nation's right in any form will not be reviewed by the Islamic state," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hussaini told a news conference.
France, one of the six powers, said the offer was generous and should not be rejected out of hand.
'Extremely generous'
"They are refusing a text which is extremely generous in my opinion, so I find it a bit premature that they are refusing it without having seen it," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters. He said world power representatives would travel to Tehran "in the coming days" to submit the offer.
A senior European Union diplomat at a meeting on the fraying nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in Geneva said of Iran's comments: "This looks like an early reaction that may not be particularly serious."
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia - and Germany offered a package to Iran in 2006 that also required Iran to halt enrichment. Tehran rejected those proposals.
"Regarding the incentives package ... we believe the path adopted in the past should not be continued," Hussaini said.
"Talks should be held based on respecting nations' rights."
The incentives offered to Iran in 2006 included civil nuclear cooperation and wider trade in civil aircraft, energy, high technology and agriculture, if Tehran suspended enrichment and negotiated with the six powers.
A European diplomat has said the heart of the previous offer - helping Iran develop civil nuclear power - remains. Britain said details would be revealed only to the government of Iran.
At the Geneva meeting, US chief delegate Christopher Ford said the offer was Iran's "best chance" to avoid isolation.
"It is tragic that [Iran's] government has remained so set on a contrary course of deceit, lawbreaking and confrontation unbefitting to the inheritors of such a proud, ancient culture."
Lingering divisions among the six powers on how to handle Iran resurfaced in the NPT debate when Russia and China objected to a British reference to Iranian activity as "a threat", saying this overstepped "the technical nature" of the London agreement.
new conflict
'Significant challenge'
Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it would be hard for Washington to mount any attack on Iran. "It would be a very significant challenge for the United States right now to get into a third conflict in that part of the world," he told Israel's Channel Ten television.
'A nightmare'
Meanwhile, Israeli President Shimon Peres has compared the Iranian nuclear threat to Hitler's Germany. He said the combination of fanatic leadership and a nuclear bomb would be a "nightmare for the world." "In a way it's more complicated than in the time of the Nazis," he said. "Hitler didn't have a nuclear bomb." Still, Peres said that if the world unites to block Iran's nuclear ambitions, no military action would be necessary.
- Reuters & AP
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