US, EU launch joint strategy on Iran

The United States and Europe launched a coordinated push yesterday to get Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear arms programme by offering economic incentives as a carrot and possible UN action as a stick.

Washington announced it would allow Iran to begin talks on joining the World Trade Organisation and would consider allowing it to buy commercial aircraft spare parts, in a major policy shift requested by the Europeans.

In return, Britain, France and Germany said they would haul Tehran before the UN Security Council if it resumed uranium enrichment and nuclear reprocessing activities, which could be used to develop an atomic bomb.

In Vienna, Sirus Naseri, a senior Iranian negotiator in nuclear talks with the European Union, dismissed the US offer as "too insignificant to comment about."

The US decision marks a major policy shift by Washington, which had previously refused to offer such incentives to Iran.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cast the US move as a way to support the European diplomacy and she ruled out any further US gestures to Iran for now.

"This is giving to the Europeans more cards to play in their negotiations with the Iranians," Ms Rice told Reuters. "This is about unifying the international community so that it's the Iranians who are isolated, not the United States.

"The Europeans have a strategy which is to show the Iranians that if they are prepared to live up to their international obligations there is an alternative path to confrontation and... a path to a better future," Ms Rice said.

The joint US-EU strategy was a first fruit of US President George W. Bush's trip to Europe last month and appeared to bridge, at least for now, years of disagreement over whether to engage or isolate the Islamic republic.

"I am pleased that we are speaking with one voice with our European friends, I look forward to working with our European friends to make it abundantly clear to the Iranian regime that the free world will not tolerate them having a nuclear weapon," Mr Bush said.

The common stand, however, leaves room for disputes down the line. Britain, France and Germany did not commit to supporting UN sanctions nor did they set any deadline for their talks with Iran.

In a written statement, Ms Rice said the United States would drop its objection to Iran's application to join the WTO and would "consider, on a case-by-case basis, the licensing of spare parts for Iranian civilian aircraft, in particular from the European Union to Iran."

US support is vital if Iran is to get either benefit. Iran's entry into the WTO would tie it far more closely to the world trading system and would require broad reforms of its economy, a development which many analysts believe would open up the society and possibly encourage political reform.

But it could be years, if ever, before Iran joined given the lengthy trade negotiations that precede membership and the uncertainty about whether Tehran will enact reforms, let alone abandon its suspected nuclear ambitions.

While deeply skeptical the European diplomacy will work, US officials have said they want to give it the best chance of success and to insulate themselves from blame if it fails.

The United States accuses Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear arms. Tehran says its programme, long concealed from the UN nuclear watchdog, is purely for civilian energy purposes.

But chief Iranian negotiator Hassan Rohani insisted in an interview published yesterday that Iran would not give in to Western demands that it scrap efforts to complete the fuel cycle, which could help it make bombs.

France, Germany and Britain said that if Iran continued its suspension of all enrichment and reprocessing activities and cooperated fully with the UN's Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, they believed the issue could be resolved at that level.

"If on the other hand, despite our efforts Iran does not do so, then as has been implicit in the agreements reached with Iran and well understood by all concerned, we shall have no choice but to support referring Iran's nuclear programme to the UN Security Council," the letter from the three obtained by Reuters said.