Asked what would happen if Iran did not accept the offer, Schuessel, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “This will be discussed within the framework of the G8. Iran has until the world economic summit in July to think it over.”
His comments represent the first clear deadline for Iran to respond to the offer, prepared by Germany, France and Britain and backed by the EU, United States, Russia and China. The G8 summit will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia on July 15-17.
An EU diplomat told Reuters that the 25-nation bloc’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who brought the offer to Iran earlier this week, did not set any deadline for a response.
But European and U.S. officials have made it clear they would not wait months for an Iranian response to the offer of civilian nuclear technology, security guarantees and other benefits if Iran freezes nuclear fuel production.
It also threatens Iran with economic and political sanctions if it rejects the offer.
Tehran says it wants only to produce low-enriched uranium to generate electricity. But many countries suspect Iran, the world’s fourth-biggest oil producer, seeks to purify uranium to the extremely high levels needed to fuel atomic weapons.
Schuessel said that it was important to think of Iran in terms of a larger context and not to focus on the idea of preventing a single country from developing atomic weapons.
“It’s not just a question of Iran, but a host of other countries which stand on the threshold of a nuclear technology that can ultimately lead to nuclear weapons — 10 countries and Iran is the first,” he said.
But he said that Iran had an obligation to demonstrate that its nuclear ambitions are peaceful as it says they are.
“If the Iranian leaders are serious about not wanting nuclear weapons, then they should support this with facts. That’s relatively easy to do,” Schuessel said.
He added that the international community needed to urgently come up with a way of bolstering the non-proliferation regime.
“We need international concepts, whereby one could enrich uranium under international oversight and supervision,” he said, echoing an idea long championed by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog chief, Mohamed ElBaradei.
(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Brussels)
