Tehran, Iran – Iran said today that accepting European incentives to suspend uranium enrichment would be like trading gold for chocolate and mockingly offered the Europeans trade inducements of its own.
European nations said they may add a light-water nuclear reactor to a package meant to persuade Tehran to permanently give up uranium enrichment – or face the threat of U.N. Security Council sanctions. A light-water reactor is considered less likely to be misused for nuclear weapons development than the heavy-water facility Iran is building, although such misuse would still be possible.
In a nationally televised speech before thousands of people in central Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast scorn on the proposal.
“Do you think you are dealing with a 4-year-old child to whom you can give some walnuts and chocolates and get gold from him?” he said.
Members of the crowd shouted back: “We love you, Ahmadinejad!” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi mocked Europe’s offer by saying Iran was willing to give its own incentives in return for recognition of Tehran’s right to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel.
“We are prepared to offer economic incentives to Europe in return for recognizing our right,” Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted by state-run radio as saying. “Iran’s 70 million population market is a good incentive for Europe.” Enriched uranium can be used as civilian nuclear plant fuel or, if processed further, as fissile material for a bomb.
Meanwhile, a top-level, six-nation meeting on Iran was postponed today, reflecting differences among the United States, Russia, China and Europe on how generously Tehran should be rewarded if it gives up enrichment – and how harshly it should be penalized if it does not.
The London meeting of senior officials from the five permanent Security Council members and Germany was to have been held Friday.
But diplomats told The Associated Press that it had now been postponed to Tuesday at the earliest. The British Foreign Office said the move was “to allow a further detailed preparation of the … offer to Iran.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s opposition to the threat of sanctions or the use of force against Iran, saying that Tehran should be coaxed into dialogue over its nuclear program rather than punished.
Lavrov said Tuesday that Beijing and Moscow will not vote for the use of force in resolving the nuclear dispute. He also said Ahmadinejad will attend a summit next month in Shanghai, China, of leaders from Russia, China and four Central Asian nations.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to say Tuesday whether a light-water reactor would be offered in the package of incentives for Iran. But he insisted that Iran would be required to halt its program of enriching and reprocessing uranium on Iranian soil, saying the United States and others “do not want the Iranian regime to have the ability to master those critical pathways to a nuclear weapon.” In his speech in central Iran, Ahmadinejad said Iran “won’t accept any suspension or end” to its uranium enrichment activities.
He said Iran had trusted the European Union in 2003 and suspended its nuclear activities as a gesture to boost negotiations over its nuclear program, only to have the Europeans demand Iran permanently halt its uranium enrichment program.
The 2003 deal called for guarantees that Iran’s nuclear program wouldn’t move from civilian goals to producing weapons. Iran agreed to the request, but negotiations collapsed in August 2005 when the Europeans said the best guarantee was for Iran to permanently give up its uranium enrichment program.
Iran responded by resuming uranium reprocessing activities at its uranium conversion facility in Isfahan.
“We won’t be bitten twice,” Ahmadinejad said.
“We recommend that you not sacrifice your interests for the sake of others,” he said in an apparent warning to the European Union about supporting the U.S. position.
Ahmadinejad reiterated a threat to pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if international pressure to give up uranium enrichment continued.
“Don’t force governments and nations to renounce their membership in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” he said asserting that Iran had the right to a civilian nuclear power program.
With Iran’s nuclear program now before the Security Council, the U.S. is leading efforts to introduce a council resolution that would demand Iran give up enrichment or else face the threat of sanctions. Washington seeks to make such a resolution militarily enforceable. Russia and China continue instead to favor talks meant to persuade Tehran to compromise.
