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| Iran has till mid-July to consider nuclear offer |
| 2006-06-10 |
| European Union president Austria said on Friday Iran has until the Group of Eight (G8) summit in July to consider an offer of incentives to suspend its nuclear enrichment program. The offer, which EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana personally delivered to Tehran earlier this week, was prepared by Germany, France and Britain and is backed by the EU, United States, Russia and China. Asked what would happen if Iran did not accept the offer, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "This will be discussed within the framework of the G8. Iran has until the world economic summit in July to think it over." President Bush said on Friday Iran "has weeks, not months" to respond to the proposal. His comments represent the first clear deadline for Iran to respond to the offer. Originally, Russia and Germany had said they expected Iran to respond by the end of this month. U.S. officials have said they expected an answer from Iran by the time of the summit, though have avoided making it a hard-and-fast deadline. The G8 summit will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia on July 15-17 and Iran's nuclear ambitions is expected to be one of the main topics of discussion. Tehran says it wants only to produce low-enriched uranium to generate electricity. But many countries suspect Iran, the world's fourth-biggest oil producer, seeks to purify uranium to the extremely high levels needed to fuel atomic weapons. A powerful Iranian cleric used Friday prayers to send a clear message to the six world powers that prepared the offer -- that they will never stop Iran from making nuclear fuel. "Now they want to deprive us of many advantages. The package they have brought is a package that is good for themselves and is not appropriate for the Iranian people," Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told worshippers in Tehran. Jannati heads the Guardian Council, Iran's highest constitutional watchdog. The council does not directly make nuclear policy, a task Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has entrusted to the Supreme National Security Council. The latest report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), released on Thursday, appeared to give credence to Jannati's comments. The IAEA said Iran had this week launched a fresh round of uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for power plants or bombs, just as Solana delivered the offer. He did not set any deadline for a response. But European and U.S. officials have made it clear they would not wait months for Iran to respond to the offer of civilian nuclear technology, security guarantees and other benefits if Iran freezes nuclear fuel production. The offer also threatens Iran with economic and political sanctions if it rejects the offer. "There is a chance now with the way things have changed in the past couple of weeks to get a diplomatic solution and that's what everyone wants to see," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said at a news conference in Paris with French President Jacques Chirac. Chirac said the Islamic republic would not be allowed to develop the bomb: "We can't accept that it carries out a process that could in reality lead to the creation of a nuclear weapon." Schuessel said Iran had an obligation to demonstrate that its nuclear ambitions were peaceful as it said they were. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 Iranian Summer beckons - dare Commie Winter and "General/Colonel Mud"!? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-06-10 20:40 |
| #1 Well, no, the deadline is July 8 |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-06-10 07:35 |