Special report: Iran nuclear crisis

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett (C) addresses the media during a news briefing in the British residence in Vienna June 1, 2006. Major world powers on Thursday agreed on a package of incentives for Iran to halt sensitive nuclear fuel work, as well as penalties if it does not, Beckett told reporters. (Xinhua/Reuters)

    VIENNA, June 2 (Xinhua) -- World powers on Thursday reached consensus on a package of incentives to get Iran to halt nuclear enrichment, including an offer to suspend sanctions against it in the United Nations Security Council.

    The meeting over Iran's nuclear issue, attended by foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- five UN Security Council permanent members -- as well as Germany, part of the "EU3" that conducted stalled talks with Iran over its nuclear program, ended at the British embassy at midnight on Thursday.

    "We have agreed on a set of far reaching proposals as a basis for discussions with Iran," British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told a press conference.

    The international community would provide Iran with a package of incentives, "which would bring significant benefits," if Iran gives up its current uranium enrichment activities, she said without giving details.

    Before the meeting, diplomats said the incentives were expected to include a light-water nuclear reactor and a foreign supply of atomic fuel for Iran so Tehran would not need to enrich uranium itself.

    "We are prepared to resume negotiations" with Iran, if "Iran resumes suspension of all enrichment related and reprocessing activities and we would also suspend action in the Security Council," Beckett said.

    "We believe they (the proposals) offer Iran the chance to reach a negotiated agreement based on cooperation," she added.

    Beckett urged Tehran to respond positively to the proposals to avoid facing UN Security Council penalties.

    US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burnstold reporters that Washington was "very satisfied" with the agreement.

    "We consider it a step forward in our quest to deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability," Burns said.

    US officials said the package would be presented to Iran within days and Tehran would have only "weeks" to answer.

    "Senior representatives from the six nations made certain progress over Iran's nuclear issue at the meeting due to international diplomatic efforts," a diplomat, who attended the gathering, told Xinhua.

    "It also indicated the will that all sides involved expect to solve Iran's nuclear problem through negotiations," he added.

    The meeting was a follow-up to the May 24 London talks, at which representatives of the six nations failed to reach a consensus on the measures to be taken if Iran rejected to halt its uranium enrichment activities.

    Meanwhile, crude oil futures extended their losses and ended sharply lower on Thursday, falling below 71 U.S. dollars a barrel,as market anxiety about a U.S.-Iran confrontation continued to ease.

    The United States, claiming Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons under the cover of what Tehran says a peaceful effort to generate electricity, said on Wednesday that it could join the negotiations between the European Union and Iran with preconditions.

    As a response, Iranian officials said earlier on Thursday they were open to negotiations but rejected the U.S. condition to suspend all nuclear enrichment activities.

    "We will not give up our nation's natural right (to enrichment),we will not hold talks over it. But we are ready to hold talks over mutual concerns," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in Tehran.

    Iranian officials have indicated Tehran might be willing to limit itself to research-scale work using only a small number of centrifuges, the machines that spin uranium gas in order to refineit.

    But the U.S. position, reiterated by a senior State Department official Thursday, was that even one centrifuge is too much, otherwise Iran will acquire the "break-out" capability for making nuclear weapons. Enditem

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