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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| US will not rule out Iran dialogue |
| 2006-05-25 |
| Iran must suspend uranium enrichment before the United States will consider direct talks on the Iranian nuclear programme, the White House said on Wednesday. US presidential spokesman Tony Snow was responding to a US media report that Iran had recently asked a number of intermediaries to convey its wish for face-to-face dialogue with the US. Bilateral negotiations are not an option until Iran is “very serious about suspending all enrichment and reprocessing of uranium,” Snow told reporters. “They have to do it in a verifiable and credible manner and a permanent manner. When that happens, all right, then there may be some opportunities,” he said. Talk of possible US-Iranian contacts began in early May after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reached out to his US counterpart George W Bush in a lengthy letter. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Iranian officials had also asked a flurry of intermediaries to pass word to Washington that Iran is interested in dialogue. They reportedly include the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei; UN Secretary General Kofi Annan; Indonesia, and Kuwait. But Snow said the US would not want to divide the coalition of major countries that Washington says share the goal of keeping Iran from having nuclear weapons. The US State Department portrayed Iran’s diplomatic offensive as a diversion from the dispute over its nuclear programme, which Tehran says is only for civilian power generation. “There are many who want to make this a US-Iran issue,” department spokesman Sean McCormack said. “It’s not a US-Iran issue. It’s the concern of the international community, an increasingly united international community, and Iran.” ElBaradei met Wednesday with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, but sidestepped a reporter’s question about whether he brought a message from Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, whom he met a few days before his trip to Washington. “Of course, I briefed Secretary Rice on the Iranian point of view, but it is rather different from the US point of view,” ElBaradei said without elaborating. US-Iranian official contacts have been on ice since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution and the 15-month hostage-taking of US diplomats by Iranian students. The US is working closely with Germany, France and Britain to stop any attempt by Iran to build nuclear weapons. Senior diplomats from the four countries met Wednesday in London with officials from China and Russia to work on a set of incentives and threatened penalties designed to make Iran suspend enrichment. Rice said the negotiators made “good progress.” McCormack, her spokesman, said earlier that Washington hopes the package will persuade Iran to return to “the pathway of dialogue,” a call echoed by ElBaradei after his talks with Rice. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |