Iran indicates it has no plans to halt enrichment

Iran's ambassador to Belgium presented the response to the incentives package to Solana in Brussels, Iranian state media reported Friday. European officials said they were studying the Iranian response and were consulting among themselves and with the United States, Russia and China on what to do next.

Acting on behalf of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, Solana offered the modified package of economic incentives to Iran during his June visit to the country. The offer is meant to persuade Iran to halt enrichment, which the six world powers fear Iran could use to produce weapons.

Iran has repeatedly insisted it will not give up enrichment, but it had said the incentives package had some "common ground" with Tehran's own proposals for a resolution to the standoff.

Separately, EU nations also approved new sanctions against Iran in June, imposing additional financial and travel restrictions on a list of Iranian companies and experts, including the country's largest bank.

The six nations--the U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany--first offered a package of economic, technological and political incentives to Tehran nearly two years ago on condition that it suspend enrichment.

The standoff has led to increasingly tense exchanges about the possibility of a military strike by Israel or the U.S. An Israeli military exercise last month was seen as a warning to Iran.

The commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards has said that Iran would consider any military action against its nuclear facilities as the beginning of a war. However, the general also has said he thinks a strike by Iran's adversaries is unlikely.

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Associated Press Writer George Jahn contributed to this report from Vienna, Austria.