Iran on Saturday told European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana that it was interested in receiving economic incentives in exchange for halting its uranium enrichment program. "Iran does not trade its rights in return for incentives," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters. "The Islamic Republic of Iran doesn't need incentives from Europe to obtain its rights."

Solana had said last month that the EU would prefer to offer incentives to persuade Iran to drop its enrichment program instead of imposing more sanctions on Tehran, as decided recently by the UN Security Council.