West coaxes Iran on incentives at UN watchdog debate

VIENNA, June 15 (Reuters) Western powers today nudged Iran to take up a new offer of incentives to halt its disputed nuclear fuel programme, soft-pedalling previous threats of possible sanctions brushed aside by Tehran.

Responding to US and European appeals at a UN nuclear watchdog meeting, a senior Iranian diplomat said the package was under serious consideration. But in Tehran, Iran's supreme Islamic leader said it would not buckle to Western pressure.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, alluding to Iran's drive to master uranium enrichment technology, said ''the continuation of this scientific move is among (our) prominent and main objectives''.

The five UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany offered Iran a batch of sweeteners on June 6 to stop purifying uranium, which Tehran says would generate electricity but which the West sees as a disguised atomic bomb project.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation governing board debated two reports by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei citing Iran's continued obstruction of IAEA probes into its nuclear intentions and its refusal to freeze enrichment activity.

''We hope that Iran's leaders will think about what is best for the economic prosperity and long-term security of the Iranian people,'' the US ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, told the Vienna-based board.

He said Iran could choose between two paths, one offering peaceful nuclear technology and another ''bringing to bear the weight of the Security Council''. But he did not mention sanctions options often invoked before the new offer.

China and Russia, big trade partners of Iran, oppose sanctions and could veto them in the council. Their stance has steeled Iranian defiance of Western pressure.

White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters Iran seemed ready to negotiate and still had time to digest the offer, but reiterated it must halt enrichment for talks to start.

''The precondition is clear, everybody's agreed on it. So they have to take that first necessary step,'' Snow said, adding he expected Iran to try to ''test the unity'' of the big powers.

Western diplomats said before today's debate that they would eschew tough language to coax Iran to engage the offer.

The six world powers have given Iran until a Group of 8 industrialised nations summit in mid-July to reply.

IRAN WEIGHS PACKAGE Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told the IAEA meeting Tehran would provide an answer ''in due course'' and said Iran was ready for talks without preconditions to remove ambiguities about the intent of its nuclear activities.

''We are determined to keep the door of negotiations and dialogue open,'' he told reporters. But he said any possible recourse to punishment if Iran refused the offer would not work.

''The 'carrot and stick' policy has always been counterproductive,'' he said, condemning the IAEA's referral of Tehran in February to the council over its history of hiding atomic research and stonewalling investigations.

The top three European Union powers, France, Britain and Germany, took a cautious line in the debate. They said Iranian cooperation with the IAEA had ''declined almost to zero'' but that the big powers aimed to strike a deal based on mutual respect.

The three, which conceived the offer to Iran, said diplomacy was in a delicate phase but they hoped Iran would respond positively. They made no mention of possible punishment.

China hopes Iran will ''adopt a constructive attitude'' and create favourable conditions for a return to talks, Beijing's ambassador to the IAEA, Tang Guoqiang, told the board, according to Xinhua news agency.

A Western diplomat, seeking to counter Iran's assertion that it enjoys wide support among non-Western states, said half the 16 board members from the Non-Aligned Movement, to which Iran belongs, urged Tehran to shelve enrichment to restore trust.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking after talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Shanghai, was quoted by RIA news agency as saying Iran was ready to start talks and he expected a response to the package in ''the nearest future''.

REUTERS SY BD2137