No Simple Answer From the Iranians

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.

More recently, Iran has resisted the Security Council’s efforts to compel it to suspend its uranium enrichment and answer outstanding questions about its nuclear program, which it had operated in secret for 18 years. An Iranian resistance group revealed the program in 2002.

U.N. inspectors have reported Iran is operating at least one cascade of 164 centrifuges, used to separate isotopes of uranium, in a pilot plant. Two more cascades are under construction. When uranium gas is spun at high speeds through a series of linked centrifuges, or cascades, it can be enriched enough to form fissile material.

Although Bolton and experts say that sanctions are the next step, early signals from other Security Council members suggest that Russia and China may be reluctant to move forward immediately.

Even as Bolton talked about the economic sanctions, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass put out a statement from a top parliament member saying that it was too early to consider sanctions.

Iran’s negative answer “is not yet a red line,” said Mikhail Margelov, the head of the Russian Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee.

In their official statements, world powers took pains to avoid a quick response or dismiss the offer out of hand. They said Tehran had replied “comprehensively” to the offer and they wanted to review it.

Iran’s response was “extensive and therefore requires a detailed and careful analysis,” said a statement by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana. He did not describe any specifics of Iran’s response.

During a meeting in Tehran, Larijani delivered the reply to the incentives package to representatives of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the United States. Switzerland represented the U.S., which has no diplomatic relations with Iran.

The response comes just a little more than a week before Iran faces the same demand from the Security Council, which passed a resolution July 31 with the legally binding requirement that Iran halt enrichment-related activities by Aug. 31 and undertake an array of “transparency measures” to reassure the public that its program is peaceful.

The resolution also required Tehran to answer questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

If Iran fails to comply, the resolution says, the Security Council will enact economic sanctions, although it remains unclear which penalties would receive backing from all veto-wielding members.

Statements by a number of Iranian officials have suggested that the Islamic Republic appears set to move ahead with its program regardless of the threats of sanctions.

The deputy chief of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammed Saeedi, said that “considering the technical progresses made by the Iranian scientists in the nuclear ground, suspension of uranium enrichment has now turned practically impossible,” according to the translation of an article on the Fars News Agency website.

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Times staff writers Peter Spiegel in Washington, Maggie Farley at the United Nations and David Holley in Moscow contributed to this report.