BERLIN, May 16: The European Union’s three biggest powers plan to offer Iran a light-water nuclear reactor as part of a package of incentives if Tehran agrees to freeze its uranium enrichment programme, EU diplomats said on Tuesday. They said they would be very surprised if Iran accepted their offer, though they added that if rejected, it would be seen as confirmation that Tehran’s nuclear programme does not solely aim at power generation for peaceful ends.
The United States and EU accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic energy programme, an allegation Tehran denies.
A European Union diplomat said the political directors from the ‘EU3’ — Britain, France and Germany — and the office of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana would discuss the proposed incentives plan with US, Russian and Chinese counterparts in London on Friday.
“The EU3 and Solana are planning an offer of a European light-water reactor to Iran in return for a suspension of its enrichment programme,” the diplomat said.
Nuclear experts say light-water reactors are more difficult to use for weapons purposes than heavy-water plants, which produce fuel which is easier to use to make plutonium bombs.
The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said he would not comment on the reactor idea but made clear the package had to include sticks as well as carrots — ‘not half a package’.
“And it will be only when the entire package of both halves is put together, I think we’ll be prepared to express an opinion,” Mr Bolton told reporters at UN headquarters.
According to a confidential EU document, the 25-nation bloc is considering a wide array of economic and political sanctions, including travel bans on Iranian officials, curtailing diplomatic ties, trade sanctions and the freezing of assets of Iranian companies and persons.
The EU trio first proposed the idea of supporting Iranian efforts to develop light-water technology in an offer they made to Tehran in August last year. That offer, which Iran rejected, followed two years of tortuous negotiations.
US SUPPORT: European diplomats said the new offer would be much more specific, partly because they were confident of the full support of Washington to offer Tehran a nuclear power plant. The point, they said, is to show sceptics like Russia and China that the West is not trying to deprive Iran of civilian nuclear energy.
“Still, no one believes that this reactor will be built, because Iran will say no,” an EU diplomat said, adding that a European reactor would be much more expensive for the Iranians than the $1 billion Russian plant currently under construction.
