VIENNA: The European strategy to persuade Iran to pursue its nuclear energy programme without making fuel that could be used for atomic weapons seems to be failing as Iran insists on its right to fuel cycle work.

Despite almost two years of intensive diplomacy by European negotiators Britain, France and Germany, Iran on Saturday rejected an EU deal to give trade, security and technology incentives in return for the Islamic Republic renouncing nuclear fuel work that could also be used to make atomic weapons.

Diplomats cautioned that the Iranians may yet change their minds in what is a chess-like game of brinkmanship, as deadlines fall on Western threats to take Iran to the UN Security Council which could impose punishing international economic sanctions.

But the Iranians do not seem to be swallowing the bait that include a promised trade agreement with the European Union and help in getting into the World Trade Organization (WTO), even with the United States supporting the European deal.

Even the European trio’s hardline stance in calling last week for an emergency meeting of the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) risks backfiring.

“The Iranians are quite annoyed about the IAEA meeting being called before they had reacted to the EU proposals,” which were submitted on Friday, a Western diplomat close to the Vienna-based IAEA, told AFP.

The diplomat said the Iranians, who have said they wish to work under IAEA safeguards, may now be angry enough to break the agency’s seals at a uranium conversion plant in Isfahan which they want to re-start.

“They are clear about wanting to go ahead with this facility and are not going to wait to be condemned before they do it,” the diplomat said, about the IAEA meeting which is scheduled to be held next Tuesday.

Iranian President Dr Mahmood Ahmadinejad summed up the Iran’s insistence on its rights under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to do fuel cycle work when he warned at his swearing-in ceremony in Tehran on Saturday that his country would not accept “tyranny”.

The EU offer would allow Iran to pursue peaceful nuclear energy activities but foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the proposals were “unacceptable to the Islamic Republic of Iran, they provide no guarantees for Iran’s interests and are contrary to the (nuclear) Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Paris agreement (of November which set the stage for the Iran-EU talks).”

Diplomats said two factors pushing the Iranians to intransigence may be anger that the United States is helping India with its nuclear programme, despite the fact that India is a nuclear power which has not even signed the NPT, and concern that the Europeans can not deliver on their promises unless the United States joins fully in the EU offers.

A diplomatic source in Paris said “the United States has followed our negotiations with enormous skepticism as they don’t think they will get anywhere.”

Also, the Iranians may be calculating that Russia, which is building Iran’s first nuclear power plant, and China, a big client of Iranian oil, would not back sanctions at the Security Council.

But non-proliferation analyst Joe Cirincione asked from his Washington think tank: “Will the Russians continue to provide Iran with a nuclear capability if the matter goes to the UN Security Council?”

“What the Iranians would be betting on is that Russia and China will continue trading with them no matter what and that’s a risky bet,” Cirincione said.

The European trio spelled out in a summary of their proposal what they have been trying to accomplish with Iran, with which they concluded a first agreement in October 2003 to suspend uranium enrichment and a second agreement in November last year to suspend all enrichment-related activities while talks continued.

The summary, obtained by AFP, said the goal was “a final agreement on long-term arrangements providing objective guarantees that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes (which) would lead immediately to a higher state of relations based on a process of collaboration in different areas.”

But this collaboration, which would include guaranteeing Iran nuclear fuel for a civilian atomic programme fully supported by the EU, hinges on the Islamic Republic “making a binding commitment not to pursue fuel cycle activities” itself.

Iran has however repeatedly said its suspension of uranium conversion and enrichment is temporary and voluntary, as both activities are allowed under the NPT. Tehran is a signatory to the NPT.—AFP