Anne Gearan of AP is reporting this:
- The United States is prepared to join other nations in holding direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program if Iran first agrees to stop disputed nuclear activities that the West fears could lead to a bomb, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday.
“To underscore our commitment to a diplomatic solution and to enhance prospects for success, as soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States will come to the table,” Rice said in remarks prepared for delivery at the State Department.
The Swiss ambassador to the United States was called to the State Department earlier Wednesday to receive a copy of Rice’s remarks for transmission to Iran, U.S. officials said. The United States has had no diplomatic ties with Iran and few contacts at all with its government since Islamic radicals took over the U.S. Embassy in 1979 and held diplomats there for more than a year.
The United States and the European nations that led stalled talks with Iran last year have agreed on the basics of a package of incentives for Iran if it is willing to give up its disputed activities, Rice said.
“We hope that in the coming days the Iranian government will thoroughly consider this proposal,” Rice said.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the United States will not enter one-on-one talks with Iran. The European talks included Britain, France and Germany.
The United States has refused repeated calls from European nations, other leading diplomats and former U.S. secretaries of state to join the talks or make other diplomatic overtures to Iran.
The agreement to join talks now represents a major shift in policy for the Bush administration, which has been deeply suspicious of Iran’s intentions and the prime mover for tough United Nations action against the clerical regime.
Iran has so far refused to do what the U.S. is now demanding as a first step to talks. Iran did voluntarily suspend those activities while talks were active with the Europeans last year, but resumed and stepped up those activities this spring.
This is a significant new development. When Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a long letter to Pres. Bush ten days ago, that was the first direct Iranian communication to Washington since 1979. The Bushites immediately tried to publicly deride Ahmadinejad’s letter. But evidently they have since then thought a bitharder about thematter– and indeed about the whole very pro-Iran balance of power in the Gulf region– and have decided to counter with this letter. (Switzerland has acted as the diplomatic go-between for the two governments ever since relations were broken off in 1979.)
This new Rice letter will not immediately open up a direct channel between Washington and Teheran. Indeed, that is not what Rice and Bush are aiming to do at this point… Instead, they are only saying they’ll join unspecified “other nations”– maybe just the EU-3, or maybe also China and Russia?– in holding talks with Teheran… And that, only in response to serious further concessions from Teheran on the nuclear-fuels issue.
Still, what a relief to see the Bushites even starting to move in this direction… This, at a time when the rightwing and neocon networks are all still baying for military action and regime change in Iran.