VIENNA — Iran offered to enter "serious negotiations" over its nuclear program Tuesday, but appeared to reject the key U.N. Security Council demand that it suspend its uranium enrichment program.
The apparent refusal of an incentives package offered by world powers sets up a potential confrontation with the Security Council, which has given Iran until Aug. 31 to respond to a resolution requiring it to stop enrichment.
John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Tuesday that if Iran refused to halt enrichment, the United States would introduce a resolution through the Security Council calling for economic sanctions against Tehran.
Iran's rejection, signaled by diplomats from several countries, but not yet made public, came as no surprise to Western powers. For weeks, Iranian officials have said they are willing to negotiate many aspects of the nuclear program, but not halt enrichment altogether.
"It doesn't look like it [the Iranian response] will meet our -- or the Security Council's -- demand to suspend their enrichment program," said a Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not a spokesman.
Western countries suspect that Iran is attempting to gain the capability to make a nuclear bomb. Iran insists its program is for peaceful energy production.
Iranian officials said the response, which was 23 pages long, offered a "new formula" for discussions. Ali Larijani, the Iranian government's chief nuclear negotiator, was quoted by state-run television as saying that Iran "is prepared as of Aug. 23 to enter serious negotiations" with the countries that proposed the incentives package.
The reply came on the same day that former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami applied for a visa to speak at the National Cathedral's Center for Global Justice and Reconciliation in Washington next month. Widely viewed as a moderate and reformer, Khatami was president from 1997 until last year, when his term ended and elections brought hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.
The White House refused to discuss the Iranian nuclear proposal, saying it was up to the diplomats "to parse" it, said Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino. President Bush had not yet read it, she said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had been on vacation, returned to review the document.
Over the last year, Tehran has taken an increasingly confrontational stance toward efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
