EU's Solana says to meet Iranian on nuclear offer

BRUSSELS, June 22 (Reuters) European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said today he expected to meet Iran's chief nuclear negotiator again in the next week to explain a US-backed European plan to reward Tehran if it ends sensitive nuclear activities.

Solana, who delivered the package of proposed incentives to Iran on behalf of major world powers on June 6, said he had spoken to Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, at length by telephone yesterday.

''I can tell you that I expect to meet in the coming days -- next week probably, with Mr Larijani,'' he told reporters, without saying where the meeting would take place.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that Tehran would reply to the EU proposal by August 22, prompting US President George W Bush to say that ''seems like an awfully long time'' to consider the offer.

The White House said today that Bush would like a reply in advance of a Group of Eight industrialised nations summit in St Petersburg, Russia, in mid-July.

Solana did not give Iran any deadline when he handed over the proposal, but he reaffirmed when asked about Ahmadinejad's comment that he hoped for a response within ''weeks, not months''.

An EU official said Solana was willing to go to Tehran or meet Larijani elsewhere to provide further explanations of the proposed political, economic and technological incentives, conditional on Iran suspending uranium enrichment and related activities, but it would not be a negotiation.

In Tehran, Iranian officials said they would welcome a meeting with the EU to discuss what Larijani has described as ''ambiguities'' in the proposals.

He has said the issue of enrichment is one point that needs clarification.

Senior Western diplomats in Tehran said a meeting could help clear up any questions Iran has, but could not be used to reopen the terms of the package proposed by Britain, Germany and France and the European Union, with the backing of the United States, Russia and China.

''The offer itself was a way of agreeing a basis to get back into negotiations, not for negotiation itself,'' said one senior Western diplomat, who asked for anonymity.

REUTERS SB HS1935