EU Promises ‘Generous, Bold’ N-Offer for Iran

BRUSSELS, 16 May 2006 — The European Union is preparing to make a “bold” offer to Iran, including possible security guarantees, to persuade Tehran to curb its atomic plans, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said yesterday. The 25-member bloc wants to present Iran with a stark choice of accepting the offer, expected to be delivered around the end of the month, or risk seeing international support grow for a UN resolution that would pave the way for possible sanctions.

“It will be a generous package, a bold package that will contain issues related to nuclear, economic matters and maybe if necessary security matters,” EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters before a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

A draft statement for yesterday’s EU meeting obtained by Reuters stated the EU could help Tehran develop “a safe, sustainable and proliferation-proof civilian nuclear program” while stipulating it halt all enrichment activities on its soil. “If they (the Iranians) do come back into compliance, people will work hard to help them achieve what they really need, or say they need, which is access to civil nuclear power,” British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told reporters.

Solana made the comment ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers including the so-called EU-3 — Britain, France and Germany — tasked with trying to defuse the West’s diplomatic standoff with the Islamic state.

“It will be a generous package, a bold package, that will contain issues relating to nuclear, economic matters, and maybe, if necessary, security matters,” Solana said. “We are preparing a package (so) that it will be difficult for them to say no if what they really want is energy,” he said.

The West fears that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon behind the screen of a civilian atomic energy program. Tehran says it only wants to generate energy. The United States is seeking sanctions from the UN Security Council but it has failed to win support for the move and has given its European allies “a couple of weeks” to draft a fresh approach.