The Bush administration said yesterday it is open to European incentives for Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment — a key to producing nuclear weapons — but it will not offer any U.S. benefits to Tehran.
Britain, Germany and France are to present a benefits package at a meeting of officials from the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries at the State Department on Friday, spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.
“We’ll hear what they’ve put together. We’ll hear them out and talk together with them about how to move Iran into compliance” with the requirements of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mr. Boucher said.
The discussions on a package of incentives are a last-ditch effort to persuade Iran to abandon its uranium-enrichment activities before a crucial November meeting of the IAEA board of governors, U.S. and foreign diplomats said.
If Tehran does not comply, it most likely will be referred to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions.
Mr. Boucher, who would not use the word “incentives,” dismissed suggestions that the administration is compromising its own policy of no deal-making with “axis of evil” countries — Iran, North Korea and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
“What we are doing now is to examine how to get Iran to meet [the IAEA] requirements,” he said.
At the same time, he said, the United States will continue to insist that the matter be referred to the Security Council, even if Tehran accepts the European offer.
“Its past behavior merits referral” to the council, Mr. Boucher said.
A senior State Department official said: “We are not going to make any new offers.”
The European Union decided on Monday to prepare a package of “carrots and sticks.”
“They have always made clear that there are certain aspects, certain benefits in the EU relationship with Iran that wouldn’t happen without Iranian compliance,” Mr. Boucher said.
The senior State Department official said those benefits would include lifting some EU economic penalties and opening of trade opportunities.
Russia, which will be represented at the Friday meeting, is expected to provide nuclear fuel for Iran’s civilian reactor in Bushehr, the official said.
The U.S. team at the meeting will be led by John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, and Glyn Davies, deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs.
The Group of Eight also includes Italy, Japan and Canada.
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said yesterday that the EU cannot force Iran to give up its right to enrich uranium.
“It is wrong for them to think they can, through negotiations, force Iran to stop enrichment,” he told a conference in Tehran. “Iran will never give up its right to enrichment.”
Iran’s nuclear program has become a presidential campaign issue, with Sen. John Kerry, President Bush’s Democratic challenger, accusing him of not being involved enough with the Europeans in resolving the matter.
The Friday meeting could help Mr. Bush counter Mr. Kerry’s charges. It also could upset some of the president’s conservative supporters if it is perceived as a softening of the U.S. stance toward the Islamic republic.
U.S. differences with Iran go beyond suspicions it is attempting to make nuclear weapons. It is on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The Washington Times reported in yesterday’s editions that Iran is attempting to influence fellow Shi’ite Muslims concentrated in southern Iraq by sending weapons, money and suicide bombers.
The Times also quoted a leading Iranian dissident in Paris as saying Iran is infiltrating hundreds of Shi’ite clerics into southern Iraq ahead of January elections in an attempt to set up a sister fundamentalist Islamic republic.
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