Offers aimed to stop N-activities unacceptable

Tehran, May 14: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today said any offer drawn up by European states that included a demand to stop peaceful nuclear activities would be unacceptable.

''Any proposal that obliges us to stop peaceful (nuclear) activities would not have value and would not be valid,'' Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast on state television.

Three European Union countries, France, Britain and Germany, are drawing up incentives to offer Iran in exchange for cooperation in ending enrichment work, which the West believes Tehran is using to develop atomic bombs.

Iran insists its aims are peaceful and argues that its right to enrich uranium is ensrhined in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

''I think the best incentive is that they implement the regulations of the NPT...especially on articles two and four,'' the president said.

Article 2 of the NPT says signatories should not develop nuclear weapons and Article 4 says countries have the right to the research, development and production of nuclear energy.

Western diplomats say Iran would have such rights only if it could prove its aims are entirely peaceful but the UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency says it still cannot give Iran a clean bill of health.

Iran has been hauled before the UN Security Council for failing to persuade the world that its nuclear programme does not have a military goal.

REUTERS