A nuclear deal proposed by the major powers appeared on Sunday to have widened rifts among Iran’s ruling conservatives but seemed unlikely to lead to a quick diplomatic breakthrough.
The proposal, made by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council as well as Germany, and made public on Sunday, offered help building ”light water” reactors, the ”provision of legally binding nuclear fuel supply guarantees, cooperation with regard to management of spent fuel and radioactive waste” in return for Iran’s suspension of uranium enrichment and reprocessing.
A spokesperson for the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, rejected the conditions as ”unacceptable” and ”not debatable at all”. United States President George Bush said the Iranian government had ”rejected this generous offer out of hand”.
However, Tehran has made no formal response to the package, which was delivered by the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana and a team of senior international diplomats. Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, gave it a warmer welcome.
”The Parliament will carefully study the package,” Larijani told the Parliament, or Majlis. He said Iran would welcome negotiations but would not forget its sovereign rights.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of the national security and foreign policy committee in the Majlis, told the Iranian news agency IRNA that ”we can reach an agreement over common points”.
The British representative accompanying Solana, Mark Lyall Grant, the foreign office’s political director, stayed on in Tehran on Sunday for bilateral talks.
British officials said before the Solana mission that they did not expect the package to be accepted — it is similar to a proposal rejected in 2006 — but hoped it would stimulate a debate among conservative Iranian politicians over the economic costs of pursuing enrichment and reprocessing, which the UN Security Council wants suspended because of the risk of proliferation.
However, a senior British source said Iran would be given only about a month to make up its mind before new EU sanctions were imposed, targeting Iran’s biggest bank, Bank Melli. Talks over a fourth wave of sanctions for Iran would also start at the Security Council.
Russia and China are resistant to tougher sanctions, arguing that they risk driving Iran deeper into isolation and defiance. As a consequence, the US may seek to assemble a ”coalition of the willing” for direct action, possibly including a naval blockade of Iranian shipping in the Persian Gulf or a ban on exports of equipment and technology for Iran’s oil industry.
Bush also refuses to exclude the option of using military force before he leaves office next January.
Israeli officials have said their country might carry out military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities rather than accept its emergence as a nuclear rival in the region.
Alongside the nuclear proposals in the Solana package, were offers to lift all restrictions on trade with Iran, including the export of airliner spare parts that Iranian aviation badly needs, and support for Iranian membership of the World Trade Organisation. – guardian.co.uk