Iran-U.N. Nuke Showdown Likely

Iran is unlikely to accept European incentives aimed at getting it to suspend uranium enrichment, diplomats said Thursday, raising the likelihood of a showdown with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency next month.

Envoys from Britain, France and Germany offered civilian nuclear technology and a trade deal to the Iranians in a private meeting at the French mission to international organizations in Vienna. But Western diplomats said they doubt the Tehran regime will back down easily.

Iran did not immediately respond to the incentives, which included the promise of lucrative trade, a light-water nuclear research reactor and the chance to buy nuclear fuel from the West.

An Iranian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Thursday's meeting did not involve detailed negotiations, merely the formal presentation of the European offer.

Amir-Hossein Zamaniyan, director-general of international affairs for Iran's Foreign Ministry, would take the proposal back to Tehran for study, the diplomat said.

The offer came a day after President Mohammad Khatami said Iran would not give up uranium enrichment, which can be used both to generate electricity or build a nuclear weapon.

Iran insists its nuclear activities are peaceful and geared solely toward generating electric power. The United States contends that Tehran is running a covert nuclear weapons program.

On Nov. 25, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors will deliver a fresh assessment of Iran's cooperation with the nuclear agency. The United States is pressing to report Iran's noncompliance to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.

Iran is unlikely to cave in quickly to demands that it suspend enrichment, a Western diplomat familiar with the nuclear agency's dealings with Tehran told The Associated Press.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Iran doesn't react until the eve of the board meeting" with any significant concessions, said the official, who was not directly involved in Thursday's meeting.

Although the IAEA also had no hand in the European offer, agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei has said he welcomes any attempt to negotiate an end to the standoff — so long as Iran consents to continued comprehensive inspections that can verify it does not pose a nuclear proliferation threat.

The Bush administration — which labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and Iraq when it was still ruled by Saddam Hussein — said this week it did not endorse the European allies' plan.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Iranians "have shown a pattern of not being willing to comply and of not being willing to be transparent and open about their intentions and programs."

The British and German foreign ministers have urged Iran to indefinitely suspend its nuclear program. Iran has resumed testing, assembling and making centrifuges used to enrich uranium, heightening U.S. concerns that its sole purpose is to build a bomb.

Iran's long-range ballistic missile capabilities, combined with its nuclear know-how, pose a threat not only to Israel but to Europe, Israeli President Moshe Katsav said Thursday in Vienna.

"Why does Iran need rockets with a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles)? Why is Iran investing money in the development of weapons of mass destruction?" Katsav said during the first visit to Austria by an Israeli head of state.

If Tehran does not accept the European incentives, suspend enrichment and agree to IAEA verification that it has done so, Britain, France and Germany likely would back the U.S. push to report its defiance to the Security Council, diplomats said.

Experts say Iran has been building a heavy-water reactor, which would use plutonium that also could be used in a nuclear weapon. A light-water research reactor, by contrast, uses a lower grade of plutonium.