Ahmadinejad scorns EU atomic incentives

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday ruled out any idea of halting nuclear fuel work in return for EU incentives, saying the Europeans were offering "candy for gold".

Britain, France and Germany, the European Union's three biggest powers, plan to offer Iran a light-water reactor as part of a package to induce Tehran to freeze a uranium enrichment programme that the West suspects has military dimensions.

However, they had to postpone a meeting with their US, Chinese and Russian counterparts scheduled for Friday, with US and EU diplomats saying the shape of the package was not agreed.

"They say we want to give Iranians incentives but they think they are dealing with a four-year-old, telling him they will give him candies or walnuts and take gold from him in return," Mr Ahmadinejad told a crowd in the central city of Arak.

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.

"Iran will not accept any suspension or freeze (of nuclear work)," Mr Ahmadinejad said in a speech that was televised live.

The US and its EU allies want Iran to end nuclear fuel activities as a guarantee that it is not trying to make atomic weapons. Tehran says the fuel is only for power stations.

"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," Mr Ahmadinejad said of European diplomacy.

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.