Chirac urges Iran to reconsider EU nuclear offer
Reuters
Date: 08-29-05
By Sophie Louet
PARIS (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac stepped up pressure on Iran on Monday to reconsider a European Union offer of incentives in return for a suspension of sensitive nuclear work.
The U.N. Security Council would have to examine the issue if Iran did not cooperate, Chirac said, pressing Tehran to abandon atomic work that both the EU and the United States suspect is a preliminary step toward making nuclear weapons.
"I invite the Iranian authorities to make the choice of cooperation and trust by genuinely looking at this offer and by reverting to their commitments to suspend activities linked to the production of fissile materials," Chirac said in a speech.
Iran rejected the offer earlier this month and resumed some nuclear work in breach of a promise to freeze such activities while talks lasted, prompting the EU trio of Britain, France and Germany to call off a negotiating meeting with the Iranians.
The move to call off the talks, which were envisaged as part of the EU offer, marked a breakdown in two years of negotiations between the EU trio and Iran over its nuclear program.
Frustrated by Iran resuming uranium conversion at its Isfahan plant earlier this month, the EU is now preparing the road to possible sanctions.
ROOM FOR DIALOGUE
"There is room for dialogue and negotiation," Chirac said in a speech to French ambassadors meeting in Paris to discuss France's foreign policy.
"We urge Iran to show a spirit of responsibility to re-establish cooperation and trust, without which the Security Council will have no choice but to examine the question."
"The European offer is worthy of the role which this great country, which is Iran, should play in the world," Chirac said.
The EU's proposal offers a package of economic, technical and political measures in return for a permanent suspension of Iranian uranium enrichment activities.
The Islamic republic says it wants nuclear technology only to cope with booming electricity demand. The EU and the United States suspect it of secretly trying to build nuclear weapons.
In Germany, Foreign Ministry spokesman Walter Lindner said: "Tehran's response to the proposals of the EU has so far been more than disappointing."
Iran said on Friday it hoped to present a plan within a month to head off EU preparations to refer it to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions, but diplomats interpreted the move as stalling.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a news conference on Sunday Tehran hoped to deliver the plan "within one and a half months."
"We still believe in our talks with the three European countries, however we don't think the negotiations should be done exclusively with them," he said.
"If they say they don't want to negotiate or if they tie the next round of talks to some preconditions, the Europeans are moving toward excluding themselves (from negotiating with Iran)."
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, is due to report on Iran's compliance with its nuclear obligations on September 3.
The IAEA's governing board called on Iran on August 11 to halt the atomic work it has resumed in defiance of the West. The board meets again on September 19, when diplomats expect the EU trio to push for Iran to be referred to the U.N. Security Council.
Source
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