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Iran rejects US terms for nuclear program dialogue

Iran yesterday rejected US conditions for talks on its controversial nuclear program, saying it was ready for negotiations but unwilling to freeze sensitive nuclear work.

"We support dialogue in a fair and unbiased atmosphere, but we will not talk about our undeniable and legitimate rights, because this is the right of our people according to international laws and treaties," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters.

"We are ready to talk about common concerns and if the conditions are such in a way that we have outlined ... we are ready to negotiate with all parties," he said, giving the Islamic republic's first reaction to the US proposal.

In what has been regarded as a major policy shift, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced on Wednesday that Washington was ready to enter the European-led negotiations on Iran's nuclear ambitions if Tehran suspended uranium enrichment.

Enrichment can be extended from making civilian reactor fuel to producing the core of a nuclear weapon, but Iran insists its activities are strictly peaceful and therefore enshrined as a "right" under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But Mottaki said that Rice's statement -- which also touched on US concerns over Iran's human rights record and its alleged support for terrorism -- "did not have any new words in it."

"They have repeated their old old words. A new solution and a logical solution for the nuclear issue was not seen in the declaration," he said of the offer for the first substantive talks since diplomatic ties were broken off 26 years ago.

"Maybe they wanted to cover up their crimes in the region. First and foremost, the US should be held accountable for their crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, the prisons of Guantanamo and [Baghdad's] Abu Ghraib [jail]," he added.

Iran's refusal to halt enrichment, in line with UN Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency demands, leaves the country exposed to sanctions.

The US, Europe, Russia and China were to meet in Vienna yesterday to continue talks on a carrot-and-stick approach to the crisis -- trade and other incentives if Iran complies and sanctions if it refuses.

Iranian officials have indicated Tehran may be willing to limit itself to research-scale work using only a small number of centrifuges, the machines that spin uranium gas in order to refine it.

But the US position is that even one centrifuge is too many, otherwise Iran will acquire the "break-out" capability for making nuclear weapons.

Diplomats in Washington and Vienna said the US offer to hold talks with Iran was linked to an effort to get China and Russia to ease categorical opposition to UN sanctions if negotiations stalled.

"What they [China and Russia] have agreed is that if Iran does not accept this offer of negotiations or does not negotiate in good faith, we will return to the [UN] Security Council" for sanctions, a senior US official said.

"It's a kind of moment of truth for Iran," Rice also told CBS TV.

According to an early draft text, the possible sanctions include an arms embargo on Iran -- something Russia, a key arms supplier to Iran, and China, a major consumer of Iranian oil, resist.

On the benefits side, the EU-3 proposal says world powers should help Iran build light water reactors for its civilian nuclear energy program.

But Iran's frosty response to Washington's offer comes despite widespread international support for the proposal.

"Today a real chance has appeared to achieve such a resolution. We call on Iran to respond to it constructively," the Russian foreign ministry said.

"We welcome the US gesture to solve the issue through talks," Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) said, while cautioning that Beijing was "not supportive of the arbitrary use of sanctions."
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