VIENNA, Austria — Europe’s three main nations are ready to promise Iran nuclear technology, including a light-water nuclear reactor, if Tehran takes steps to show it is not secretly trying to make atomic weapons, according to a confidential document obtained by Agence France-Presse yesterday.
“We would support the acquisition by Iran of a light water research reactor,” said the document presented by Britain, France and Germany to Western nations ahead of a meeting of the so-called Euro-3 with Iran in Vienna, Austria, tomorrow.
The paper, presented to a meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized nations last week in Washington, outlines the EU trio’s position “in the run up” to a meeting Nov. 25 of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog that is expected to determine whether Iran is cooperating with the IAEA.
In Washington, the State Department would neither confirm nor deny the reported promise.
“We don’t object to Iran having a reactor,” a senior department official said. “We object to Iran enriching uranium and having a cycle that allows them to hide weapons development.”
The Bush administration insists that the IAEA should refer Iran’s nuclear ambitions to the U.N. Security Council for any penalties, no matter what Iran does between now and the Nov. 25 IAEA meeting.
The reported European promise to Iran is similar to the one set into motion by the Clinton administration for North Korea in 1994. But the deal collapsed after George W. Bush took office when Washington froze the program, then accused North Korea of cheating. North Korea responded by rejecting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Tomorrow’s meeting in Vienna is to give Iran a last chance to come clean and to agree to suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment ahead of the IAEA meeting.
Enriched uranium can be used to make fuel for civilian reactors but also can serve as the explosive core of atomic weapons.
Iran also is working on building a heavy-water reactor, which can make plutonium ideal for nuclear weapons, while a light-water reactor makes a safer form of plutonium, scientists say.
A Western diplomat said the EU trio had told the United States the document would be “used as the basis to make the offer to Iran,” although this was not the final text .
The document said there was only “a short period of time [left] to secure a comprehensive and acceptable understanding from Iran,” which the IAEA has been investigating since February 2003 on U.S. accusations that Iran has a covert nuclear weapons program.
The United States does not “endorse” the trio’s approach but is watching the initiative to see how it develops. It then would reconvene the G-8 nations, which comprise Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States, the Western diplomat said.
“We intend to put to the Iranians an approach containing the immediate decisions we require from them on suspension and draft elements for a long-term agreement which we could start to negotiate as soon as the IAEA verifies that the suspension is in place,” the three countries’ paper said.
“The suspension will be indefinite, until we reach an acceptable long-term agreement,” the three European nations said.
They said that if Iran failed to suspend uranium enrichment, the European countries would join the United States in calling for the Islamic republic to be taken to the U.N. Security Council, which then could impose punishing sanctions.
But if Iran plays ball, they would be ready to promise a whole range of measures, including access to nuclear fuel for its civilian reactors and recognizing Iran’s right “to develop a nuclear power generation program to reduce its dependence on oil and gas. To this end, we intend to give the Iranians a clear indication of the sort of longer term benefits Iran would gain in return for the suspension we seek,” the paper said.
• Staff reporter Nicholas Kralev in Washington contributed to this article.
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