Iran pulls nuclear rug from under Europe

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared it pointless for Europe to devise an economic and political incentive package if it required Tehran to stop enriching uranium – effectively pulling the rug from under the latest international diplomatic effort before it was to begin today.

The hard-line Iranian leader spoke on state television yesterday after returning from Indonesia, where he was warmly welcomed and won developing nation's support for the peaceful production of nuclear energy.

Ahmadinejad said proposals being shaped by the European Union were “invalid” if “they want to offer us things they call incentives in return for renouncing our rights”.

Also yesterday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman declared ”insignificant” reports that inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog found traces of highly-enriched uranium on equipment from an Iranian research centre.

Refusing to budge in his relentless campaign to assert Iranian regional power and leadership, Ahmadinejad said opponents of the country’s nuclear programme were “living in the era of colonialism” and did not respect Iran’s national sovereignty.

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is designed only to build electricity-generating reactors. The US and some allies claim or express concern that Tehran is hiding a military programme to make nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad’s remarks were clearly aimed at European Union foreign ministers meeting today in Brussels, Belgium, to consider sweetening a package of incentives that would entice Iran to suspend uranium enrichment – an issue that has now reached the UN Security Council but was put on hold to give the EU more time for diplomacy.

Last August, Iran rejected an initial European initiative that included economic benefits and the transfer of some nuclear technology for a civilian programme. Iran has repeatedly stalled on a November offer from the Kremlin to enrich uranium on Russian soil for use in Iranian reactors.

In January, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran would not give up control over a single step of the nuclear fuel cycle – from mining uranium to enriching it. Iran then announced it was resuming research-level uranium enrichment.

In February, the IAEA board voted to report Iran to the Security Council, and Tehran vowed to immediately start work on full-scale uranium enrichment and curtailed the agency’s powers in Iran – ending intrusive, snap inspections.

At the Security Council, the US – with limited backing from Britain and France - sought a tough resolution under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter to declare Iran a threat to world peace and subject it to sanctions or even military action.

But Russia and China, both of whom hold vetoes in the council, opposed such dramatic measures.

Given the divisions among the five permanent members of the council, which also includes the US, Britain and France, Washington was forced to back down while the European Union took up the issue once more in another run at a diplomatic solution.

A document posted on the EU’s Web site said the ministers were likely to express the bloc’s “preparedness to support Iran’s development of a safe, sustainable and proliferation-proof civilian nuclear programme, if international concerns were fully addressed”.

But European officials said no major progress on a final proposal could be expected at the Brussels meeting. The plan would be held in reserve until after talks among non-proliferation officials from the five permanent members of the Security Council next Friday in London.

Iran also showed its determination not to step back when Foreign Ministry spokesman Hammed Reza Asefi yesterday dismissed a report two days earlier that IAEA inspectors had found traces of highly enriched uranium on some of Iran’s nuclear equipment.

“It’s insignificant. It’s not important. Previously, things like this were said but later inspectors arrived at the right conclusions,” Asefi told reporters.

It was the second time the IAEA inspectors found traces of highly enriched uranium at Iranian facilities. The first discovery was later traced to equipment from Pakistan that Iran bought on the black market during nearly two decades of clandestine activity.