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 EU's three biggest powers, plan to offer Iran a light-water reactor as part of a package to induce Teheran to freeze a uranium enrichment program that the West suspects has military dimensions.

 

"They say we want to give Iranians incentives but they think they are dealing with a 4-year-old, telling him they will give him candies or walnuts and take gold from him in return," 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)," Ahmadinejad said in a speech that was televised live.

 

The EU seeks an end to Iran's nuclear fuel activities as the only credible guarantee that it is not making atomic weapons. Teheran insists it needs the fuel 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," 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 standoff in talks with France, Germany and Britain.

 

But the diplomacy failed and Iran resumed work on atomic fuel in August last year.

 

Ahmadinejad warned that pressure on Iran over its nuclear program could produce adverse reactions. "Don't force governments and nations which are signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to pull out of it," he said.

 

The permanent five members of the UN Security Council and Germany have delayed a meeting on Iran scheduled for this week to allow more time to prepare the EU proposal, a British Foreign Office spokesman said.

 

The US has taken a wary approach. "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."

 

(China Daily May 18, 2006)