Iran was yesterday considering an offer from world powers aimed at resolving the six-year nuclear crisis, but hopes of a breakthrough were dim after Tehran appeared to bluntly reject a key condition.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana delivered the offer on behalf of world powers to top Iranian officials on Saturday, saying it was “full of opportunities” for the Islamic republic.
The deal offers talks on a package of technological and economic incentives, so long as Tehran suspends uranium enrichment activities, which the West fears could be used to make an atomic bomb.
PHOTO: AFP
But barely hours into Solana’s visit, Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham announced that Tehran would reject any package that does not allow it to enrich uranium, the key sticking point in the crisis.
The hardline Kayhan newspaper, the mouthpiece of Iran’s clerical authorities, scoffed at the package and said Solana “was not here to negotiate but on a mission to threaten Iran”.
The aim of Solana’s visit was “to force Iran to give into illegal Western demands and to force Iranian officials to give into the American and Western allies’ blackmail,” it said.
US President George W. Bush, whose administration has led the campaign against Iran, made no effort to hide his belief that the package was effectively dead on arrival.
“I am disappointed that the leaders rejected this generous offer out of hand,” he said in Paris.
“A nuclear-armed Iran is incredibly destabilizing,” he said. “It would be a major blow to world peace.”
STILL LIFE
Solana, however, insisted there was still life in the package and urged Iran to give a “positive” answer.
“We are in front of a win-win situation,” he said, speaking alongside representatives of world powers spearheading efforts to find a solution to the crisis.
“The fact we are here together in Iran shows how seriously we regard this problem and how serious we are in trying to find a solution,” he said. “We need to restore trust and confidence in the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.”
Solana held meetings with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and top national security official Saeed Jalili. Both were keen to emphasize Iran’s answers would depend how the West responds to Tehran’s own package.
Iran last month launched a package that it described as an all-embracing attempt to solve the problems of the world, including the nuclear crisis. It suggests setting up consortiums to enrich uranium, including in Iran.
“To enter into an atmosphere for new negotiations, it is necessary to understand the new capacities of Iran in the region and the world,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Jalili as telling Solana.
Ali Larijani, the powerful new speaker of parliament who Jalili replaced as top nuclear negotiator last year, took a more conciliatory line.
“The parliament will study the package with alertness,” IRNA quoted him as saying.
The West wants Iran to halt enrichment over fears it could use the process to make an atomic bomb and the UN Security Council has slapped three sets of sanctions on Tehran over its defiance.
Tehran insists it has every right to enrich uranium to manufacture fuel for future power plants.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has been investigating the nuclear drive for over five years but has never been able to conclude whether it is peaceful.
A US State Department official warned that rejection of the package would mean “further isolation of Iran and would lead to further international sanctions.”
‘ALL OPTIONS’
The US has also never ruled out military action and Bush last week warned that “all options” were open.
The offer makes it clear that Iran must suspend enrichment if it is to enter into negotiations.
“The elements are proposed as topics for negotiations ... as long as Iran verifiably suspends its enrichment related and reprocessing activities,” the text reads.
The offer, a “refreshed” version of a June 2006 proposal, recognizes Iran’s “right to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”
It also offers a range of technological and economic incentives, including support for the construction of light water reactors and help with supplying nuclear fuel.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS