WORLD / Middle East
EU promises "generous, bold" Iran nuclear offer
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-05-15 16:12
The European Union will make Iran a generous offer of technology,
economic and other incentives for Iran to abandon sensitive nuclear
activities, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Monday.
"It will be a generous package, a bold package that will contain issues
related to nuclear, economic matters and maybe if necessary security
matters," Solana told reporters before a meeting of EU foreign ministers
due to work on the offer.
He gave no details but said the EU wanted to present it to Iran in the
coming weeks simultaneously with the approval of a U.N. resolution
calling on Tehran to halt enrichment of uranium or face consequences such
as sanctions.
Efforts to agree such a resolution last week stalled in the U.N. Security
Council amid opposition from Russia and China.
Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, insists its nuclear plans
are purely to make electricity. It affirmed at the weekend it would
reject any demand to stop what it calls peaceful nuclear work.
Solana said such statements misunderstood EU policy.
"We have said over and over again that we have nothing against Iran
having nuclear capabilities if they are strictly devoted to the
production of energy," he said.
But Iranian demands to be allowed to conduct enrichment for research
purposes were still "something that at the moment we (the EU) cannot
accept", he said.
The United States made clear on Sunday it had no intention of holding
direct talks with Iran on the nuclear issue despite a letter to President
George W. Bush last week from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad --
the first direct communication between the two countries' leaders for
more than two decades.
Germany has called publicly for Washington to engage Iran directly while
the two other major EU powers, Britain and France, have not commented
publicly on the idea.
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