EU to offer Iran best civil nuclear technology

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is ready to share the most sophisticated civilian nuclear technology with Iran if it agrees to halt uranium enrichment on its soil, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Monday.

But the initiative seemed likely to be rejected by Iran, and drew a reserved response from Washington.

The EU plans to offer Tehran enhanced incentives to halt sensitive nuclear activities that the West suspects are aimed at producing a bomb, coupled with a U.N. resolution threatening possible sanctions if it refuses.

"We could help you (Iran) with the best and most sophisticated technology," Solana told a news conference after EU foreign ministers met to discuss the package.

Without giving details, he said the European offer -- which it hopes to present to Iran at the end of the month -- would go beyond the comprehensive package of technological, economic and political sweeteners rejected by Tehran last August.

Diplomats said at the time that the original package included allowing Western companies to build nuclear power stations in Iran and supply fuel to them.

The 25-member bloc insisted in a joint statement that as a prerequisite for any incentive, Iran would have to agree to "suspend all enrichment related and reprocessing activity, including research and development."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had already pre-emptively ruled out any such trade-off on Sunday.

On Monday his foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told the ambassadors of Britain, France and Germany:

"Any demand for a suspension or pause (of uranium enrichment) is an illogical and unacceptable demand and undoubtedly will be rejected."

The United States has agreed in principle to the EU presenting a new package offer to Iran, provided it accompanies a U.N. resolution paving the way for possible sanctions if Tehran does not suspend uranium enrichment activities.

No U.S. administration spokesman was available for comment. But diplomats in Washington said Bush administration officials who opposed a now-defunct 1994 deal that promised North Korea nuclear reactors were concerned that such an EU offer to Iran would reopen the door for Pyongyang to seek similar treatment.

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The EU statement acknowledged Iran's right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes but said the EU fully supported a U.N. resolution that would make legally binding international calls for it to suspend nuclear enrichment.

Much of the international community's concern is based on the fact that Iran hid enrichment research for over a decade.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for urgent action on the dispute, but said he was encouraged by the continuing diplomatic efforts.

The United States made clear on Sunday it had no intention of holding direct talks with Iran on the issue despite a letter to President George W. Bush last week from Ahmadinejad -- the first direct communication between the two countries' leaders for more than two decades.

Germany, which has previously urged Washington to engage Iran directly, acknowledged there was little chance of this.

"The United States has said it is out of the question," Steinmeier told reporters.

Jon Wolfstahl, a non-proliferation expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the EU offer would include not only access to reactors but also several years' worth of enriched uranium in fuel rods -- under "supersuper safeguards" -- ready for use in the reactors.

(Additional reporting by Carol Giacomo in Washington, Carsten Lietz in Brussels and James Mackenzie in Paris)