Enlarge imageBy Parisa Hafezi and Mark John
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator rebuffed Western pressure for an immediate answer to an offer of incentives to suspend uranium enrichment ahead of crucial talks with the European Union on Tuesday.
The United States, which accuses Tehran of secretly working to build nuclear weapons, has demanded a clear Iranian response before next weekend’s summit of Group of Eight industrialised nations in Russia or face possible U.N. Security Council action.
But Ali Larijani told reporters before he met EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana for a second round of talks in five days: "We have expressed our view regarding the deadline. We are not used to acting before thinking."
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Iran has said it will reply in late August to a package of technology, economic and political sweeteners, and an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman suggested its full answer would only emerge later during detailed negotiations on the offer.
"Iran’s answer will not be given suddenly. The answers will be given during the negotiations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted as saying by state radio, adding Tehran saw "ambiguities" in all three areas of the package.
An Iranian deputy foreign minister said Iran was not considering freezing its uranium enrichment activities as part of a solution.
"We did it before, we did it for two and a half years. It proved that it didn’t work," Manuchehr Mohammadi said on a visit to China. "Nothing came as the fruitful and useful conclusion."
Mohammadi said Iran was optimistic about what he called Western "flexibility" over the incentives, but warned that any resort to sanctions would be counter-productive.
Diplomats say Russia and China, both veto-holders in the U.N. Security Council, are wary about imposing sanctions on Tehran and so acknowledge there is little pressure on Iran to give an early reply to the offer presented by Solana on June 6.
Outside the talks, some 60 supporters of the exiled Iranian opposition waved banners urging "U.N. sanctions to stop the game of the mullahs", insisting Tehran was not interested in solving the dispute and was merely playing for time.
AMBIGUITIES
Iran said on Sunday that Solana had not managed to answer all its questions on the package during a two-hour meeting with Larijani last Thursday.
The EU, which had described last week’s talks as a good start, brushed off those remarks and said it still wanted a "substantive response" from Larijani on Tuesday.
"We will continue to discuss with Larijani, with the aim of getting from Iran their response to the proposals," said Solana’s spokeswoman Cristina Gallach.
The talks come a day before a meeting in Paris of foreign ministers from the five permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- and Germany, the six powers behind the incentives offer.
The package includes a state-of-the-art nuclear reactor with a guaranteed fuel supply, economic benefits and other incentives if Iran halts uranium enrichment.
Two U.S. nuclear analysts said the offer would be more appealing to Iran if it included U.S.-backed assurances of no threats or use of force, and a pledge of quick help to restore infrastructure worn down by U.S.-driven trade restrictions.
"Iran is not prepared to relinquish (enrichment) for tenuous concessions like multilateral talks to which the U.S. is one party, or promises of nuclear and economic assistance involving long timetables and complicated conditions," said former U.N. arms inspector David Albright and analyst Jacqueline Shire.
Their Washington-based think tank Institute for Science and International Security said Iran had to be offered a way forward which "makes the decision to give up enrichment an appealing, logical step and not a humiliating, defeated one".
Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, rejects charges it seeks a nuclear weapon and argues it is solely interested in electricity generation.
Oil eased on Tuesday, falling again on hopes of progress towards resolving the nuclear stand-off. London Brent was down 20 cents to $72.69 a barrel. But traders said losses were limited by Tehran’s reluctance to reach an accord quickly.
(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Tehran)
