Iran Says U.S. Offer Makes No Difference

Iran scoffed at U.S. incentives aimed at coaxing it to drop its nuclear ambitions and declared Saturday that Washington’s overtures had done nothing to change its plans.

An Iranian envoy in Europe, however, acknowledged in guarded terms that there appeared to be a “new awakening” in Washington.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said neither threats nor incentives would alter Iran’s determination to develop peaceful nuclear technology. Washington insists Tehran’s uranium enrichment program is designed to build a nuclear weapon.

A day earlier, the Bush administration agreed to support a European plan that offered economic incentives for Iran to give up activities that could yield a nuclear weapon.

The U.S. concessions, announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, include an end to American opposition to Iran’s application for membership in the World Trade Organization and a partial lifting of the ban on sales of spare parts for Iran’s civilian aircraft. Rice signaled that Iran should quickly accept or face the threat of United Nations Security Council sanctions.

Asefi said Rice’s offer was no offer at all.

“The restrictions on spare parts that have no military purpose should have not been imposed from the beginning, and lifting them is not an incentive,” state-run radio quoted Asefi as saying. And, he said, “joining the WTO is an obvious right of any country in the world.”

But Sirous Nasseri, an Iranian envoy in Geneva who spoke by telephone with Associated Press in Vienna, described Rice’s announcement Friday as a “new awakening ... [that] I believe would stand to benefit the United States more than anybody else.”

He warned, however, against unrealistic expectations, saying Iran would never give up its right to uranium enrichment.