US dismisses Iranian president's 'offer' on enrichment halt
'Pakistan Times' Wire Service

WASHINGTON: The White House scoffed Tuesday at an offer by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to suspend uranium enrichment work if Western countries do the same.

A second US aircraft carrier, meanwhile, moved into the Sea of Oman, assembling US naval firepower in the region on a scale not seen since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Iran for its part held air defense exercises.

The Iranian president said Tehran would refuse to meet a deadline Friday imposed by the UN Security Council to halt sensitive uranium enrichment efforts. But he told a rally in Rasht that Iran would be willing to stop the enrichment program if other nuclear powers were willing to do the same.

"Do you believe that's a serious offer?" White House spokesman Tony Snow said when asked about Ahmadinejad's comments.

Snow declined to comment on whether Iran might face additional sanctions if it failed to meet the UN deadline and said Washington was waiting for a report from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei. "We'll see what the IAEA has to report," Snow told reporters.

The IAEA's ElBaradei is to report by Friday on whether Iran has stopped enrichment as required by the UN Security Council, and this finding will be reviewed at an IAEA board of governors meeting on March 6. The report could pave the way for tougher sanctions against Iran.

Snow said the international community was not opposed to Iran having a civilian nuclear program to generate electricity. "We understand that Iran wants to have civilian nuclear power and we certainly have no problem with that," he said. "What we do have a problem with is an Iran that has the ability to develop nuclear weapons."

Snow and a Pentagon spokesman stressed US commitment to dealing with Iran through diplomacy, dismissing a BBC report that the US military has drawn up fall-back contingency plans for air strikes against Iran. "The report is ludicrous," said Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman.

The United States has "significant concerns" about Iran's nuclear programs and its meddling in Iraq, Whitman said. "But we're addressing those issues on a diplomatic track."

"Why try to whoop up suspicion and skepticism about an administration right after we've demonstrated the success of diplomacy in North Korea using the same means and methods that we're trying to employ with the Iranians," said Snow.

Ahmadinejad Rejects UN Nuclear Deadline

An earlier report from Tehran said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has rejected a looming UN deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, saying it would not halt the sensitive nuclear activity as a precondition to talks.

"We are in favour of dialogue. But in order for us to talk they are imposing a condition that would deprive us of our right," Ahmadinejad said Tuesday in a public rally in Rasht, the capital of the northern Gilan province.

His comments come ahead of the expiry this week of the latest UN Security Council deadline for Iran to halt sensitive uranium enrichment work as well as a UN watchdog report Friday on its compliance with this demand.

"We say to them (the West): how can your enrichment factories continue to work when you are asking for a suspension of our activities?" he said in the speech broadcast on state television.

Ahmadinejad told the crowd of thousands the only scenario where Iran could halt enrichment was if other nuclear powers suspended the process themselves.

At six-nation talks including the United States in Beijing last week, North Korea, which tested an atomic bomb for the first time in October, agreed to start disabling its nuclear facilities in exchange for badly-needed energy aid.●