LONDON, June 2 (UPI) -- The United States and five other world powers have agreed on a package of incentives and penalties to offer Iran in an attempt to resolve the crisis over its nuclear program.
Following a U.S. offer of direct talks provided Iran first suspend sensitive nuclear activities, foreign ministers from the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia and Germany warned that action would be taken in the Security Council if Tehran did not comply.
Speaking Thursday evening after the Vienna meeting, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Iran was now faced with a choice of two paths.
"I am pleased to say that we have agreed a set of far-reaching proposals as a basis for discussion with Iran," she said in a statement on behalf of all six powers.
"We are prepared to resume negotiations should Iran resume the suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities as required by the IAEA, and we would also suspend action in the Security Council."
She added: "We urge Iran to take the positive path and to consider seriously our substantive proposals which would bring significant benefits to Iran."
The six powers are declining to detail the package until it has been put to Tehran, but it is thought likely to contain incentives such as assistance for a civil nuclear energy program, increased trade and investment and crucially, some form of security guarantees, known to be of the utmost importance to the Iranian regime. It also reportedly includes a list of possible punitive measures, ranging from minor to major, to be taken if Iran does not comply.
But it is Wednesday's historic offer by the United States to talk directly with Iran if it first suspends uranium enrichment activities that may have the most potential to break the current impasse.
Should Tehran agree to the deal, it would end over 25 years of silence between the two nations, which have had a deeply hostile relationship since the Islamic Revolution and subsequent hostage crisis in 1979.
The Iranian regime reacted with caution to the proposal Thursday, welcoming the offer of talks but insisting that it would not halt uranium enrichment.
In comments reported on Iranian state television, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran "will not give up our nation's natural right (to enrichment); we will not hold talks over it. But we are ready to hold talks over mutual concerns."
In a pointed riposte to Rice's condemnatory language Wednesday, he added that if the United States "is interested in any change in the existing situation, it should change its behavior and behave properly and logically."
In a ground-breaking but toughly-worded speech in Washington, Rice said the United States would "come to the table" as soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspended its enrichment and reprocessing activities. "It's time to know whether Iran is serious about negotiation or not," she added.
The regime would incur "great costs" if it continued to defy the international community with its pursuit of nuclear weapons, she warned.
Rice once again refused to rule out the possibility of pursuing a military option against Iran, saying President George W. Bush "was not going to take any of his options off the table."
But while the belligerent rhetorical exchanges between the two nations continue unabated, analysts say there are signs that the offer could prove a breakthrough.
Mottaki's statement was not a complete rejection of the U.S. proposal, and leaves some room for maneuver. There have also been media reports that Iran's enrichment activities are currently stalled for technical reasons, a coincidence which could inadvertently provide a basis for negotiations.
Alex Bigham, Iran analyst at London's Foreign Policy Center, told United Press International that the Iranians were "extremely keen to negotiate," and would no doubt consider the offer carefully.
The real decision-making power on Iranian foreign policy lay not with Mottaki but with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini and those around him, he noted.
"The government is very jittery and genuinely worried about military strikes," he added.
It might well be that Tehran would insist on keeping its 164 centrifuges running but agree to suspend other elements of its nuclear programs, Bigham said, a solution that would allow the Iranians to "save face."
As the White House urged Tehran to consider the offer in the coming days, European leaders hailed it as a significant advance.
Margaret Beckett told press in Vienna that it was "potentially a real opportunity to come to a negotiated agreement and solutions," while EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said it represented the "strongest and most positive signal of our common wish to reach an agreement with Iran."
The Chinese envoy to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, also welcomed the proposal, but urged the United States to "not have any preconditions" for negotiations.
Bigham said the U.S. offer, while genuine, was also aimed at persuading China and Russia that Washington was doing all it could to find a diplomatic solution to the dispute. If Iran rejected the proposal, the United States could say to Russia and China that the diplomatic route had been exhausted and they must now back sanctions, he said. "The U.S. is in a no-lose situation."
But he expressed doubts over whether Moscow and Beijing would support anything other than very limited punitive measures. Both countries had interests in Iran, he continued; Russia in particular, having already built the reactor at Bushehr, would no doubt want to bid for the construction of two further plants that the Islamic Republic was planning.
There were also questions as to how effective sanctions would be, he said. Economic sanctions would hurt the West as much as they would hurt Iran, and would take a long time to be effective.
If the U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte was correct in his prediction Friday that Iran could have a nuclear bomb by 2010, sanctions would be unlikely to have any real impact within the necessary timeframe, he concluded.
