Evidently, the Iranians pay better than the Saudi does when it comes to Chirac, I bet the Iranians sweetened the deal by offering him a villa in Iran so that when he is out of office and he can be prosecuted for those pending corruption, bribery charges on hold then he can take all that Middle East money and retire.
D Chirac pushes EU to drop hard line on Iran - diplomats Wed Apr 13, 2005 03:42 PM ET By Louis Charbonneau http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8173136 VIENNA (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac has been pushing the EU to drop its refusal to consider letting Iran enrich uranium, despite U.S. and European fears Iran could use enrichment technology for weapons, EU diplomats say. Sharing U.S. suspicions Iran may have atom bomb ambitions, the European Union's three biggest powers -- France, Britain and Germany -- have demanded Iran give up its nuclear fuel programme in exchange for economic and political benefits. Iran says it has no interest in the bomb and wants nuclear power plants to meet booming demand for electricity. Tehran has frozen its enrichment programme, but refuses to permanently give up what it sees as a sovereign right to produce low-enriched uranium fuel for its nuclear power programme. The Iran-EU talks had been deadlocked over the issue of "objective guarantees" that Iran's atomic programme will not be used to make weapons, with the Europeans insisting the only acceptable guarantee was a permanent cessation of enrichment. But the talks took a new turn last month when negotiators from the EU's "big three" (EU3) and the office of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana agreed in Paris to consider an Iranian proposal that it keep a small-scale enrichment programme that the U.N. nuclear watchdog would closely monitor. Several diplomats said this shift -- which came just after Washington bolstered the EU position by offering its own incentives if Tehran scrapped enrichment -- was mainly the result of pressure by Chirac, who pushed the French Foreign Ministry to drop its refusal to consider Iran's plan. "Jacques Chirac ... is the one who's taking the Iranian proposal under consideration," said an EU3 diplomat, adding the French president had the final say on foreign policy matters. Chirac, in a speech at a dinner in Paris with Saudi Prince Abdullah on Wednesday, described the EU3 talks with Iran as "concerning the peaceful use of its nuclear programme". He made no comment on the specifics of the negotiations. "An agreement would give a new dimension to Iran's relations with the states in the region and the members of the international community," Chirac said, according to a text of his speech. The Iranian proposal will be discussed in detail at a meeting of the EU-Iran nuclear working group on April 19-20 in Geneva and then at a more senior level in London on April 29, diplomats said. "ONLY ONE FRENCH POSITION" French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei denied any split between Chirac and the Foreign Ministry on the Iranian nuclear programme. "On the Iran dossier, there's one, and only one French position," Mattei said. Other EU3 diplomats confirmed Chirac had urged his negotiators to consider Iran's proposal it be allowed to have an enrichment plant with 3,000 centrifuges -- which could produce enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb per year. "Chirac seems to have taken things a bit further forward than everyone else, but his comments do not really represent the official French position on objective guarantees," one said. "I think it says more about the internal machinations in Paris than anything else," the EU3 diplomat added. One diplomat close to the EU-Iran talks said the decision to consider Iran's proposal was partly "diplomatic politeness". But diplomats said it was also a way of avoiding positions that could undermine moderate presidential candidates favouring increased engagement with the West in Iran's June 17 election. "We don't want to do anything before June," a diplomat said. When the EU-Iran talks began in January, the EU3 unanimously opposed the idea of Iran keeping its enrichment programme, which Iran had concealed from the U.N. for nearly two decades. EU diplomats close to the talks said this was still the Europeans' official position, though they said Chirac was among those who thought Iran's proposal might be acceptable. Asked if France's view on Iranian enrichment had changed, Mattei said: "Our wish is to obtain objective guarantees from Iran for the peaceful use of its nuclear programme." Iran has recently made a point of publicly praising the French position. Ahead of last month's Paris talks, a senior Iranian security official lauded Chirac for his "positive view". ------------------------ Yahoo! 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