VIENNA, Sept 18: France offered Iran a key concession on Monday towards nuclear talks, while Tehran warned it would cut cooperation with UN nuclear inspectors in the event of punitive action by the UN Security Council.

At the annual conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Iranian Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh warned that Tehran would retaliate to any sanctions by blocking cooperation with the agency’s nuclear inspectors.

There should ‘be no doubt that any hostile action by the UN Security Council would lead to limitation of cooperation’,” said Mr Aghazadeh, who is head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency.

French President Jacques Chirac said in Paris that world powers should be ready to talk with Iran without threatening sanctions, even if Tehran fails to halt uranium enrichment before the negotiations.

“I propose that on the one hand the six refrain from referring the issue to the Security Council and that Iran renounce during the negotiation the enrichment of uranium,” Mr Chirac told Europe 1 radio.

The six nations offering Iran talks on a package of trade and other incentives are the five permanent members of the Security Council — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — plus Germany.

It was the first time a leader of one of the six has said the suspension of uranium enrichment could be done during, and not as a precondition, for talks.

Mr Chirac spoke prior to his departure for the UN General Assembly in New York, where he will meet President George Bush, whose administration is pushing a much harder line on Iran.

The United States wants the UN Security Council to impose sanctions.

Mr Chirac’s new stance also jarred with that of the European Union, which said in a statement that suspending enrichment activities was ‘no longer a voluntary confidence-building measure but an international obligation’ for Iran.

It does bring France more in line with two other veto-wielding permanent Security Council members — China and Russia — who have also balked at the prospect of sanctions.

An EU diplomat said Mr Chirac’s comments severely undermined the three-nation group leading EU negotiations on Iran, which includes France itself, along with Britain and Germany.

“It weakens our position, that is clear,” the diplomat said.

—AFP