Guess who’s pushing the European Union to allow the Iranian mullahs to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons? Chirac pushes EU to drop hard line on Iran. (Hat tip: Regime Change Iran.)

VIENNA, April 13 (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac has been pushing the EU to drop its refusal to consider letting Iran enrich uranium, despite U.S. and European fears Iran could use enrichment technology for weapons, EU diplomats say.

Sharing U.S. suspicions that Iran may have atom bomb ambitions, the European Union’s three biggest powers — France, Britain and Germany — have demanded Iran give up its nuclear fuel programme in exchange for economic and political benefits. …

The Iran-EU talks had been deadlocked over the issue of “objective guarantees” that Iran’s atomic programme will not be used to make weapons, with the Europeans insisting that the only acceptable guarantee was a permanent cessation of enrichment.

But the talks took a new turn last month when negotiators from the EU’s “big three” (EU3) and the office of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana agreed in Paris to consider an Iranian proposal that it keep a small-scale enrichment programme that would be closely monitored by the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

Several diplomats said this shift — which came just after Washington bolstered the EU position by offering its own incentives if Tehran scrapped enrichment — was mainly the result of pressure by Chirac, who pushed the French Foreign Ministry to drop its refusal to consider Iran’s plan.

“Jacques Chirac … is the one who’s taking the Iranian proposal under consideration,” said an EU3 diplomat, adding the French president had the final say on foreign policy matters.