Tehran weighs nuclear offer

TEHRAN: Iran was on Wednesday weighing an international offer of incentives if it agrees to suspend uranium enrichment, with officials neither rejecting the offer nor indicating that they would meet the condition.

“On the nuclear question, we prefer cooperation to confrontation,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as saying after EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana jetted in to make the offer. “The proposals were submitted by Solana and we are going to carefully study them,” said Mottaki. “Shuttle diplomacy, if it is in good faith, would allow us to find grounds for understanding.”

The package — which offers trade, diplomatic and technology incentives in return for a freeze of the sensitive nuclear work — was drawn up by Britain, France and Germany and is backed by the United States, Russia and China. It is aimed at resolving fears that Iran could acquire nuclear weapons yet at the same time seeks to guarantee the country’s access to atomic energy. 

A Western diplomat said the “offer gives Iran a choice. The condition is that Iran returns to a suspension, and this condition is non-negotiable. The deadline is one of several weeks, basically before the end of the month and before the G8 meeting in Saint Petersburg, in five weeks’ time,” he said.