Iran misses deadline on UN sanctions offer

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran spoke before a welcoming ceremony yesterday for the president of Syria. (MORTEZA NIKOUBAZL/REUTERS)

BRUSSELS - Iran ignored yesterday's informal deadline to respond to an offer by major powers on its nuclear program, a European Union official said, but the bloc is ready to wait a few more days for an answer.

Six negotiating countries asked Iran on July 19 to respond within two weeks to their offer to hold off on imposing more United Nation sanctions if Tehran froze expansion of its uranium enrichment work.

Iran has dismissed the idea of having a deadline to reply and accused the West of double standards.

Iran will not retreat "one iota" from its nuclear rights, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday in a statement posted on the presidential website.

"In whichever negotiation we take part . . . it is unequivocally with the view to the realization of Iran's nuclear right," Ahmadinejad said after meeting in Tehran with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Assad said that, based on international agreements, every country, including Iran, has the right to engage in uranium enrichment and possess nuclear power stations, according to the Iranian statement.

Assad told France that he would use his good relations with Iran to help resolve its nuclear standoff with the West.

"One should not focus on the deadline too much. . . . What matters is that we get a clear answer quickly. It's not a matter of one day," said the EU official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the nuclear talks.

The EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, leads the talks with Iran for the six major powers - the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany - who in June offered Iran economic and other incentives to halt uranium enrichment. Solana and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, may talk by telephone in the next few days.

"It's unfortunate the Iranians have not responded to [the] generous incentives package. It just further isolates their country," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said yesterday.

"We will be consulting with our allies," Perino said.

The United States and other Western nations accuse Iran of seeking to build nuclear warheads under cover of a civilian power program. Officials of those countries have said they will seek more sanctions against Iran if the nuclear work is not frozen.

Diplomats say new UN sanctions are unlikely before September, although Western states may take tougher measures of their own.

The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said Iran should stop playing for time. "Enough dallying about," he told Der Spiegel magazine, adding that Tehran should respond with a useful answer or else face tougher sanctions.

Iran's representative to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said the country is open to talks but does not consider it is bound by any deadline.

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria arrived for talks in Tehran yesterday, a few weeks after he told France he would use his good relations with Iran to help resolve the nuclear stand-off.