February 21, 2007	Wednesday	Safar 3, 1428

WASHINGTON, Feb 20: The White House on Tuesday scoffed at Iran’s offer to suspend enriching uranium if Western countries do the same.

“Do you believe that's a serious offer?" White House spokesman Tony Snow said when asked about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments earlier on Tuesday.

Mr Ahmadinejad told a rally in Rasht that Tehran would not meet a UN Security Council deadline to halt sensitive uranium enrichment efforts by Friday unless the United States and its allies also suspended their facilities.

"If they say that we should close down our fuel production facilities to resume talks, we say fine, but those who enter talks with us should also close down their nuclear fuel production facilities,” he said.

The United States, Britain, France and Germany claim that Iran is working on a programme to develop nuclear weapon and want Tehran to abandon enrichment activities.

Tehran denies the charge, saying that it’s only trying to produce nuclear energy. Mr Snow said the international community was not opposed to Iran having a civilian nuclear programme to generate electricity.

"We understand that Iran wants to have civilian nuclear power and we certainly have no problem with that," he said. "What we do have a problem with is an Iran that has the ability to develop nuclear weapons."

The White House spokesman declined to say whether Iran might face additional sanctions if it failed to meet the UN deadline. The United States, he said, was waiting for a report from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. “We'll see what the IAEA has to report," Mr Snow told reporters.

Mr ElBaradei is to report by Friday on whether Iran has stopped enrichment as required by the UN Security Council. The IAEA board of governors will review his report on March 6 and decide whether it needs to impose tougher sanctions against Iran.