"That is why there is a need to start negotiations between Iran and other countries, of course without any preconditions, in order to achieve a rapprochement of the parties," he said.

Iranian officials are studying the package of incentives by the six major powers and will inform European countries of Iran's position as soon as they finish work, he said.

The package, aimed at getting Tehran to halt nuclear enrichment, was backed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany and presented to Iran by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

The offer contains economic and political incentives, including talks with the United States, Western help to build nuclear reactors for Iran, a guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel and permission for Iran to buy aircraft and spare parts if Tehran suspends uranium enrichment.

Mottaki said on Saturday Iran would give a response with complete transparency to the six-nation package.

Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel stressed U.S.-European cooperation in various areas, including the efforts to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions.

"Iran has to make the right choice," Schuessel said, adding that the European community welcomes U.S. involvement, particularly the recent historic signal that the United States is ready to join negotiations if Iran suspends enrichment activities.

Bush dismissed as "absurd" a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in which European nations said that U.S. involvement in Iraq was a worse problem than Iran and its nuclear program.

Bush, however, did acknowledge European concerns about the 460 detainees the United States is holding at Guantanamo Bay, but said some are "cold-blooded" killers that need to be brought to justice.

"I understand their concerns," Bush said. "I'd like to end Guantanamo. I'd like it to be over with."

Bush said that 200 detainees had been sent home, and that of the 460 remaining, most are from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan.

"There are some who need to be tried in U.S. courts," Bush said. "They're cold-blooded killers. They will murder somebody if they are let out on the street."

Bush said North Korea faces further isolation from the international community if it test fires a long-range missile believed capable of reaching U.S. soil.

"It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes who have announced they have nuclear warheads, fire missiles," Bush said. "This is not the way you conduct business in the world."

He said he was encouraged that the Chinese government had spoken out against North Korea.

"I'm pleased that they are talking responsibility in dealing with North Korea," Bush said. "It's a very positive sign."

North Korea said in comments published Wednesday that its self-imposed moratorium on testing long-range missiles, dating to 1999, no longer applies because Pyongyang no longer is direct dialogue with Washington, suggesting it would hold off on any launch if Washington agreed to new talks.

Pyongyang has consistently pressed for a direct dialogue with the United States, while Washington insists it will speak to the North Koreans only in the format of six-nation nuclear talks.

Schuessel said that if North Korea fires the missile, Europe would join the United States in condemning it.

"There will be a strong statement, strong answer from the international community and Europe will be part of it," Schuessel said.

Tehran is currently examining proposals aimed at ending the diplomatic impasse.

Strait of Hormuz

"The idea of somebody firing a missile at an installation somewhere will shoot up the price of oil astronomically," Prince Turki told a conference hosted by the United States Energy Association.

He warned that any conflict involving Iran would threaten the Strait of Hormuz, through which most Middle East nations export their oil.

Tankers carry 17 million barrels of oil through the channel every day, according to the International Energy Agency.

US President George W. Bush has refused to rule out a military attack should diplomatic efforts to reach an agreement with Iran fail.

The US Energy Secretary, Sam Bodman, has maintained that the country would be in "good shape" if Iran did put a stop on its oil exports, thanks to America's emergency stockpile of almost 700 million barrels of crude oil.

The threat of a cut in Iranian oil exports has been the main factor driving oil prices higher in recent months, with the price fluctuating either side of $70 per barrel.

El Baradei's proposal would monitor all nuclear fission and guarantee that non-nuclear weapons states would be able to obtain adequate supplies for their non-military usage of enriched plutonium.

One nation has publicly accepted El Baradei's proposal, Iran.

In light of this important back story, it is now perfectly obvious that the so-called 'negotiations' between America, its intermediaries and Iran have been designed to camouflage, distort and erase the historical record. America and Israel are opposed to El Baradei's proposal for a verifiable ban on nuclear fission (Fissban) apparently to prevent the intrusion of international inspectors into the Israeli nuclear industry.

Worryingly, the Bush White House has deliberately misled the American people concerning their suspicion of a threat from Iran. The Bush campaign against Iran is nothing more than a conspiracy theory.

Given the facts of the highly publicized "Iran Plans" for a massive American military intervention against the Iranian nuclear industry and the constant threat of bombing of Iran leveled by American authorities from George Bush and Condoleezza Rice to Richard Perle and John Bolton, it is equally clear that American policy is being driven by a Machiavellian political calculus.

Over the past two weeks there have been a chain of interlocked events: the execution of Zarqawi; the Camp David summit on Iraq; Bush's secret flight to Baghdad and the narrow escape of Karl Rove from federal indictment in the Valerie Plame case. These events are fitting into a discernible pattern designed to resuscitate the dying political corpse of the Bush administration in time for the midterm elections this November.

Continuing weakness of the Bush administration as measured by the president's approval rating will embolden those proponents for the unilateral bombardment of Iran's nuclear industry as a measure that could precipitate the resurgence of the deeply unpopular president. With so little left to lose, Bush would press the button for war in hopes of gaining the approval in red state America where his political fate will be decided on the 6th of November.

Darker plans may even be afoot or so we are led to believe by scholars of the US intelligence industry. The former CIA official, Ray McGovern, has warned of 'staged' atrocities as part of a covert US programme for the manufacture of 'synthetic terror.' Robert Woodward warned an academic audience in Texas that the next major atrocity on US soil would reduce 9/11 to a footnote in world history. There are persistent back-channel rumors of Republican Party officials circulating memoranda longing for the return to the heady days in 2001 and the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to revive the ailing Bush presidency - even at the cost of a new 9/11.

Neither America's people nor the peoples of other nations are being adequately informed about the history of international planning for the control and ban on fissionable materials that are the essential ingredients for nuclear weapons. The global media is complicit in the increasing threats to peace of a deeply unpopular American president and his loyal cadre of neoconservative apparatchiks now threatening the future of the planet with a holocaust of gigantic proportions.

He was speaking against a backdrop of international tension over North Korea's nuclear program and Western fears that
Iran may be trying to develop nuclear arms.

North Korea says it is preparing to test a long-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as Alaska in what the United States, South Korea and Japan have called a grave threat to regional security.

"I hope the leader of the DPRK (North Korea) will listen to what the world is telling them, and take care not to make the situation on the peninsular even more complicated," Annan said in his speech to the 65-state conference.

For its part, Iran needs to reassure the world of its peaceful intentions by cooperating fully with the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he added.

Globally, he called for a major drive toward nuclear disarmament to restore confidence between the nuclear powers and the rest of the international community, along with the strengthening of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The argument between those wanting to see moves on disarmament before agreeing further non-proliferation measures and those who demand the opposite "is self-defeating," he said.

"If we want to avoid a cascade of nuclear proliferation, we need a major international effort," he said.

There was an urgent need to revive the Geneva-based arms' forum, whose last negotiating success was the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty nine years ago -- even though it has still not come into force.

Negotiations must start on halting the production of fissile material as well as talks on preventing the weaponisation of outer space, Annan said.

The United States opposes any negotiations on outer space, while Russia and China want discussions to move forward on both fronts.

"If any single group has the collective power to wake the world ... it is the Conference on Disarmament," Annan said.