IRAN: Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday rejected a prospective European offer of incentives to halt uranium enrichment, the most sensitive part of Tehran's nuclear programme.
Speaking to a large crowd in the central Iranian city of Arak, Mr Ahmadinejad scorned the European offer, which is still to be formulated but is expected to include help to construct a light-water nuclear reactor as well as trade deals.
Arak is the site of a heavy-water nuclear reactor that Iran is building despite opposition from Western countries concerned that the plant's plutonium by-product could be used in warheads.
Mr Ahmadinejad added: "They say we want to give Iranians incentives but they think they are dealing with a four-year-old child, telling him they will give him candies or walnuts and take gold from him in return."
The status of the European proposal remains uncertain after the postponement yesterday of meetings scheduled for Friday between diplomats from France, Germany, the UK, the US, Russia and China.
Diplomats said that the EU would only go ahead with the offer if Russia agreed to back a tough UN Security Council resolution on Tehran - a move that in theory would give the world's big powers both a carrot and a stick to influence the Islamic republic.
But Iran has long insisted it will not accept any offer requiring it to abandon a "pilot project" to enrich uranium - a process that could in time generate weapons-grade material but which Iran says it is entitled to carry out under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
In a series of provincial trips around Iran and visits to other Muslim countries, Mr Ahmadinejad has used the nuclear issue as a popular rallying cry in defiance of the US.
While Iran's pragmatic conservatives and reformists have urged a more traditional diplomatic approach, he has used his growing popularity to become more assertive in influencing nuclear policy.
Decisions are ultimately determined by a collective leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, but Mr Ahmadinejad has gradually eased out Ali Larijani, the top nuclear official, as the public face of Iran's atomic programme.
Meanwhile, Tehran continues to insist that the fuel is only for power stations.
As for European diplomacy, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "We trusted you three years ago and accepted suspension but unfortunately this proved to be a bitter experience in Iranian history. We will not be bitten by the same snake twice,"
Iran suspended uranium enrichment work in 2003 as a goodwill gesture while it tried to forge a diplomatic solution to the stand-off in talks with France, Germany and Britain.
But the diplomacy failed and Iran resumed work on atomic fuel in August last year.
Senior diplomats from the permanent five members of the UN Security Council and Germany were due to have gathered in London tomorrow to discuss the EU plan.
No new date has been set, though one EU diplomat said Tuesday was a likely option.
"The package has not yet been agreed," US undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns said. "It is under development and we'll be meeting probably next week in Europe to look at it. I'll be going over to London for conversations."
EU diplomats said the package was also intended to provide Iran with some sort of US security guarantee, but Washington strongly denied that any such assurance was in the offing.
"Hell no," said a state department official when asked about security guarantees. "It's not even on the table," he added.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged Iran to respond constructively to proposals to break the nuclear impasse.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he hoped the incentives would pay dividends when diplomacy kicks off again.