LAREDO (USA), June 7: President George Bush said on Tuesday he was encouraged by Iran’s initial response to a US-backed incentives package to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions, but time would tell if the Iranians were serious.

Talking to reporters after a visit to a border patrol facility, Mr Bush said: “It sounds like a positive step to me.”

Reacting to proposals by six world powers to end the dispute over Iran’s nuclear fuel enrichment, Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said the plan had some positive points but also some ambiguities that should be removed.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana delivered the proposals in Tehran on Tuesday.

Mr Bush said, as he has many times before, that he wanted to solve the nuclear standoff with Iran diplomatically.

“I appreciate Javier Solana carrying the message to the Iranians that America, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany ... want this problem to be solved,” he said.

“So we’ll see if the Iranians take our offer seriously. The choice is theirs to make. I have said the United States will come and sit down at the table with them so long as they’re willing to suspend their enrichment in a verifiable way.”

Mr Solana told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the Tehran talks were ‘very useful and constructive’, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.

Mr Solana said Iranian officials told him they would need some time to review the package and he expected to have further contact with them in the next few days.—Reuters

Our Correspondent in Washington adds: The United States has offered to provide nuclear technology to Iran if it stops enriching uranium, the US media reported on Wednesday.

The offer was included in a package of incentives that European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana delivered to Iran earlier this week.

Quoting diplomatic sources and unnamed senior US officials, US newspapers reported that Washington has agreed to give nuclear technology to Iran provided Tehran gives up its programme to make nuclear weapons.

The report said that besides the US, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia have also endorsed the package, which includes the offer to share nuclear technology with Iran.

The US also has offered to lift some trade sanctions on Tehran, the report said.

Washington would also take some ‘dual-use’ technology — products that have military as well as civilian uses — off its banned list of exports to Iran, the report said.