Drop 'carrot and stick' tactics, Iran tells Obama

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FAILED POLICY: Iran has told Obama (pictured) not to use the 'carrot and stick' approach to its nuclear programme. (Getty Images)

Iran told US president-elect Barack Obama on Monday to abandon a "carrot and stick" approach to Tehran's nuclear drive and to interact with the Islamic Republic when he takes office next month.

In an interview broadcast on Sunday, Obama vowed "tough but direct diplomacy" with Iran, offering incentives along with the threat of tougher sanctions over its atomic programme.

"The carrot and stick approach has proven to be useless. It is an unacceptable and virtually failed policy," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said.

The UN Security Council has repeatedly demanded that Iran freeze its uranium enrichment work, the process which makes nuclear fuel as well as the fissile core of an atom bomb.

The United States says Iran is bent on developing an atomic bomb but Tehran insists its programme is solely for civilian energy purposes, and has continued to enrich uranium in defiance of UN sanctions.

Ghashghavi said if the new US administration was to repeat calls for Iran to halt enrichment, "our position is that we will not suspend."

"When he talks about change and he says 'we can', he is expected to change [US President George W.) Bush's confrontational strategy with interaction," he said, adding that Iran would wait to see how Obama acts when he takes office.

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