The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Tehran

Top EU diplomat Javier Solana handed Iran an offer by six major powers of trade and other incentives on Saturday to try to coax it into halting sensitive nuclear work, but Tehran again ruled out any such suspension.

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

"Iran's view is clear: any precondition is unacceptable."

He was speaking shortly after Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, presented the incentives package from the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany to Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

The offer, including civilian nuclear cooperation, is a revised version of one rejected by Iran two years ago and diplomats have played down any hopes of a breakthrough in a dispute that has helped push up oil prices to record highs.

The world's fourth-largest crude producer is refusing to stop activities it says are for generating electricity but which the West suspects are aimed at making bombs.

"Mr Solana handed (Mottaki) the letter of six (foreign) ministers and the EU and also the package," Solana's spokeswoman Cristina Gallach told Reuters by telephone. "The conversation continues."