The London talks were postponed Wednesday until next week to allow more time
for phone discussions of what should be included in the package of incentives
and penalties to be offered to Tehran, said a diplomat, requesting anonymity for
the same reason.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to say Tuesday
whether a light-water reactor would be offered in the package. But he insisted
that Iran would be required to halt its program of enriching and reprocessing
uranium on Iranian soil, saying the United States and others "do not want the
Iranian regime to have the ability to master those critical pathways to a
nuclear weapon."
In his speech broadcast live on state television Wednesday, Ahmadinejad said
Iran "won't accept any suspension or end" to its uranium enrichment activities.
He said Iran trusted the European Union in 2003 and suspended its nuclear
activities as a gesture to boost negotiations over its nuclear program, only to
have the Europeans eventually demand Iran permanently halt its uranium
enrichment program.
The 2003 deal called for guarantees that Iran's nuclear program wouldn't
diverge from civilian ends toward producing weapons. Iran agreed to the request,
but negotiations collapsed in August 2005 when the Europeans said the best
guarantee was for Iran to permanently give up its uranium enrichment program.
Iran responded by resuming uranium reprocessing activities at its uranium
conversion facility in Isfahan.
"We won't be bitten twice," Ahmadinejad said.
"We recommend that you not sacrifice your interests for the sake of others,"
he said in an apparent warning to the European Union about supporting the
position advocated by the United States.
Ahmadinejad reiterated his threat to pull out of Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty if international pressure to give up uranium enrichment continued.
"Don't force governments and nations to renounce their membership in the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," he said asserting that Iran had the right to a
civilian nuclear power program.
With Iran's nuclear program now before the Security Council, the Americans
are at the forefront of efforts to introduce a council resolution that would
demand Iran give up enrichment or else face the threat of sanctions. Washington
seeks to make such a resolution militarily enforceable, something opposed by
Russia and China, which continue instead to favor talks meant to persuade Tehran
to compromise.
In the latest sign of persisting differences, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov said Tuesday that Beijing and Moscow will not vote for the use of force
in resolving the nuclear dispute.
In a gesture to Tehran, Lavrov also said Ahmadinejad will attend a summit
next month in Shanghai, China, of leaders from Russia, China and four Central
Asian nations.
"We cannot isolate Iran or exert pressure on it," Lavrov told reporters. "Far
from resolving this issue of proliferation, it will make it more urgent."
A light-water reactor is considered less likely to be misused for nuclear
proliferation than the heavy water facility Iran is building at the city of
Arak, which — once completed by early 2009 — will produce plutonium waste.
Still, light-water reactors are not proliferation-proof, because they are
fueled by enriched uranium, which can be processed to make highly enriched
"weapons-grade" material for nuclear warheads.
