EU offers Iran nuclear hi-tech in exchange for ending enrichment[fr] 

Addressing journalists in Brussels following the Council meeting on 15 May 2006, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: ""We could help you [Iran] with the best and most sophisticated technology." He added that details would be announced only after more consultations with the US, Russia and China within the next few days. However, he clarified, the new offer would go further than the package of incentives offered in August 2006. "We are prepared to work on a co-operation package and support Iran's development of a proliferation-proof civilian nuclear programme," Austrian Foreign minister Ursula Plassnik, the current head of the Foreign Affairs Council, added. 

The EU offer came only hours after Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced that Tehran would reject any EU proposal aimed at breaking the international deadlock over its nuclear program which called on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities. 

The Iranian elite seems to stand pretty much undivided against any attempts at curbing its nuclear enrichment programme. Similar announcements were made recently by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , by the influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani . 

"The Council deeply regrets the failure of the Iranian authorities to take the steps deemed essential by the IAEA Board and the UN Security Council  as well as their threats to maintain this failure into the future," it says in the provisional version of the Council conclusions . 

At the same time, the Council "reaffirms the right of Iran to the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in conformity with its obligations under the NPT . Building on the proposals of August 2005, as confirmed by the Council in its February 2006 conclusions , the EU would be prepared to support Iran’s development of a safe, sustainable and proliferation-proof civilian nuclear programme, if international concerns were fully addressed."