Tehran, May 17 (Reuters): Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today ruled out any idea of halting nuclear fuel work in return for EU incentives, saying the Europeans were offering “candy for gold”.

Britain, France and Germany, the EU’s three biggest powers, plan to offer Iran a light-water reactor as part of a package to induce Tehran to freeze a uranium enrichment programme that the West suspects has military dimensions.

“They say we want to give Iranians incentives but they think they are dealing with a four-year-old, telling him they will give him candies or walnuts and take gold from him in return,” Ahmadinejad said in the central city of Arak.

Arak is the site of a heavy-water nuclear reactor that Iran is building despite opposition from western countries.