Powers coax Iran on incentives at atom watchdog meet

By Mark Heinrich and Emma Thomasson
June 15, 2006
The Boston Globe
Original Source: http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/06/15/un_watchdog_debate_to_push_iran_on_nuclear_offer/

VIENNA (Reuters) - World powers urged Iran on Thursday to take up a new offer of incentives to halt its nuclear fuel program, and the West soft-pedaled previous threats of possible sanctions brushed aside by Tehran.
Responding to U.S., European, Russian and Chinese appeals at a U.N. nuclear watchdog meeting, a senior Iranian diplomat said the package was under serious consideration. But Iran's supreme Islamic leader said it would not buckle to Western pressure.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, alluding to Iran's drive to master uranium enrichment technology, said the continuation of this scientific move is among (our) prominent and main objectives.
The five U.N. Security Council permanent members plus Germany offered Iran a batch of sweeteners on June 6 to stop purifying uranium, which Tehran says would generate electricity but which the West sees as a disguised atomic bomb project.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation governing board debated two reports by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei citing Iran's continued obstruction of IAEA probes into its nuclear intentions and its refusal to freeze enrichment activity.
We hope that Iran's leaders will think about what is best for the economic prosperity and long-term security of the Iranian people, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, told the Vienna-based board.
He said Iran could choose between two paths, one offering peaceful nuclear technology and another bringing to bear the weight of the Security Council. But he did not mention sanctions options often invoked before the new offer.
China and Russia, big trade partners of Iran, oppose sanctions and could veto them in the council. Their stance has steeled Iranian defiance of Western pressure.
BIG POWERS UNITED IN DEBATE
But a Western diplomat at the Vienna gathering, who asked not to be named, told reporters: Everyone from the six (powers) called on Iran to negotiate on the basis of our offer.
Trying to counter Iranian assertions that it enjoys widespread support in the non-Western world, the diplomat said 12 of 16 board members from the Non-Aligned Movement, which includes Iran, urged Tehran to cooperate more with the IAEA.
The six world powers have given Iran until a Group of 8 industrialized nations summit in mid-July to reply.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, told reporters that all sides needed patience.
From the meetings we can feel that the Iranians are looking into this package solution proposed by the six countries seriously, and I think the Iranians might need some extra time, he said late on Thursday.
White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters Iran seemed ready to negotiate and still had time to digest the offer, but reiterated it must halt enrichment for talks to start.
The precondition is clear, everybody's agreed on it. So they have to take that first necessary step, Snow said, adding he expected Iran to try to test the unity of the big powers.
Western diplomats said before Thursday's debate that they would eschew tough language to coax Iran to engage the offer.
Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told the IAEA meeting Tehran would provide an answer in due course and said Iran was ready for talks without preconditions to remove ambiguities about the intent of its nuclear activities.
We are determined to keep the door of negotiations and dialogue open, he told reporters. But he said any possible recourse to punishment if Iran refused the offer would not work.
The 'carrot and stick' policy has always been counterproductive, he said, condemning the IAEA's referral of Tehran in February to the council over its history of hiding atomic research and stonewalling investigations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking after talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Shanghai, was quoted by RIA news agency as saying Iran was ready to start talks and he expected a response to the package in the nearest future.
(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Tehran, Sue Pleming in Washington, Jason Webb in Madrid, Emma Graham-Harrison and Chris Buckley in Shanghai, and Steve Holland in Washington)