TEHRAN, 11 June 2006 — Iran will make a counteroffer in response to a Western incentive package aimed at persuading Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment, the Iranian foreign minister said yesterday.
The counteroffer may be a variation of the proposal made by Europe, the United States, China and Russia or could be an entirely new package, state-run news agency IRNA quoted Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as saying.
“We hope that Iran’s real proposal, which might come within a modified or new package, will be examined carefully by Europe,” he said.
Mottaki did not elaborate on how the Iranian proposal may differ from the Western package.
“We intend to take steps toward a comprehensive understanding that considers the rights of one side, Iran, and resolves the concerns of the other side at the same time,” Mottaki said. “Iran has begun examination of the European package and it will officially respond to the European side.”
The package put forward by the Big Five at the United Nations plus Germany aims to restart negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. It included some significant concessions by the United States aimed at enticing Tehran to freeze enrichment. The US would provide Iran with peaceful nuclear technology, lift some sanctions and join direct negotiations with Tehran.
The package also pulls back from demands that Iran scrap its enrichment program outright as an initial condition for negotiations, seeking instead a suspension. However, it also contains the implicit threat of UN sanctions if Iran remains defiant.
When presented with the proposal’s details on Tuesday, Iran said they contained “positive steps” but also ambiguities, which it said had to be cleared up in further talks. It said it would study the package before announcing its stance.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who presented the offer to Tehran, said he expected a reply “within weeks.”
Iran has consistently refused to give up enrichment, a process that can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material for a nuclear warhead. Iran insists its program is peaceful and that it has the right to develop enrichment — though it has signaled it might compromise on large-scale enrichment.
On Friday, a powerful hard-line cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, came out against the Western package, reflecting conservative pressure on the government to reject the offer.
“It’s not good for Iran,” Jannati said in his Friday sermon, telling worshippers that the West has “no choice but to accept” an Iranian enrichment program.
Jannati is the head of the powerful Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog arbitrating between Parliament and the government. He holds considerable influence, but ultimate say in state matters lies with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has sometimes overruled hard-liners on the nuclear issue.
The country’s top nuclear negotiator yesterday urged all Muslim countries to follow in Iran’s footsteps and develop a nuclear energy program.
“The nuclear issue affects the future of all Muslim countries,” Iran’s top national security official Ali Larijani said upon arriving in Cairo. Speaking to reporters at the airport, he called on Muslim countries to “choose the path” of nuclear development.
Tehran snapped diplomatic ties with Cairo after Iran’s revolution in 1979 to protest Egypt’s peace deal with Israel and temporary refuge for the deposed shah. Egypt has voiced its opposition to the emergence of another nuclear power in the region but called for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis, stressing that the international community should also address the issue of Israel’s nuclear weapons.
