Javier Solana, the EU's top foreign policy official, will travel to Tehran on Monday to present Iran with a package of incentives for the country to abandon its uranium enrichment program. But the Iranian leadership is giving mixed signals about the six-nation initiative.
Currently on a Middle East tour, Europe's head diplomat Javier Solana will fly to Tehran late Monday to offer Iran's government a package of rewards and penalties with the hope of defusing the dispute with the international community over the country's controversial nuclear ambitions.
"He will travel to Tehran this evening and tomorrow morning he will present the proposals of the international community for opening negotiations on Iran's nuclear program," an EU spokeswoman told Reuters.
Solana is expected to submit the package, which also contains the threat of UN sanctions if Iran refuses to cooperate, to Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Tuesday. The West fears Iran is enriching uranium to make a nuclear bomb, but Iran insists its program is only to generate electricity. The six permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China -- plus Germany, hammered out the offer Solana will bring to Teheran as a last-ditch diplomatic effort aimed at heading off a further escalation of the situation.
In a change in strategy last week, the United States agreed to join in multination talks on the package if Tehran suspends uranium enrichment. According to the Associated Press, diplomats revealed on Monday that Washington has sweetened the offer originally drawn up by France, Britain and Germany by saying it will lift some bilateral sanctions on Tehran such as a ban on Boeing passenger aircraft and related parts if Iran agrees to the deal.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday Iran would consider the package but insisted preconditions on negotiations, including suspension of uranium enrichment, were unacceptable.
Oil prices surged above $73 a barrel on Monday after major exporter Iran hinted it might strangle supplies. Iran's supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say in the country, warned on Sunday that oil from the Persian Gulf, which makes produces 25 percent of the world's crude oil, would be put in jeopardy if Washington backed Iran in a corner.
"If they make a wrong move against Iran, it would seriously endanger the energy flows in this region," Khamenei said.
