Iran tells Solana ‘thanks, but no thanks’

Iran rejected on Saturday any suspension of its nuclear enrichment program, after the European Union's top diplomat handed Tehran a world powers' offer of economic benefits to try and persuade it to stop such work.

"If the package (from six major powers) includes suspension it is not debatable at all," government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham told reporters.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was on Saturday to present defiant Iranian leaders with a new offer from world powers aimed at ending a six-year crisis over Iran's nuclear program.

The proposal offers Iran economic and trade incentives in exchange for a suspension of uranium enrichment activities, a concession Tehran has until now steadfastly refused to make.

Solana -- who has warned not to expect "miracles" -- was due to present the offer later Saturday in talks with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.

Expectations are already low of a breakthrough in the talks, especially after repeated vows by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Tehran will never back down in the standoff

"They think they can trample on the Iranian nation's dignity with such things," Ahmadinejad said this week. "If they want to give us something, then they should sell it and we will buy it."

The West wants Iran to halt enrichment over fears it could use the process to make an atomic bomb but Tehran insists it has every right to enrich uranium to manufacture fuel for future atomic power plants.

The price of failure in the talks could be high, with the West warning that Tehran faces more sanctions from the United Nations and European Union if it does not suspend enrichment

The United States has also never ruled out military action against Tehran and U.S. President George W. Bush warned this week that "all options" were still open over how to end the crisis.

Solana is due to give a news conference at around 1430 GMT but it is highly unlikely there will be any immediate response to his offer from the Iranian side.

Iran, OPEC's number two producer, vehemently rejects Western allegations that it is seeking nuclear weapons, saying it wants only electricity for a growing population whose fossil fuels will eventually run out.