Iran offers to enter ‘serious negotiations’
WASHINGTON – Iran offered Tuesday to enter into immediate and “serious negotiations” on a broad range of issues with the Bush administration and its European allies but refused to abide by a U.N. Security Council demand that it suspend work at its nuclear facilities by the end of the month.
Tehran’s proposal came in response to an offer in June by the United States, France, Britain and Germany for talks on the country’s nuclear program, and the possibility of future cooperation, if the Islamic republic would first agree to suspend its uranium enrichment work.
On July 31, the Security Council passed a resolution making a suspension mandatory and threatening Iran with economic sanctions if it did not comply by Aug. 31. Without a commitment to do so, the Iranian counteroffer appeared unlikely to ease a tense, years-long standoff over what Tehran insists is an energy program but Washington believes is a covert effort to develop nuclear weapons.
Bush administration officials said Tuesday they would need time to study the Iranian response. But they vowed to press ahead with efforts to impose economic sanctions against Iran if it fails to meet the Security Council deadline to freeze its nuclear program.
European officials, however, were quieter, saying privately that they did not want to rush toward sanctions before the deadline.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who has been carrying messages between Europe and Tehran, is expected to meet Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Larijani, in Brussels this week, according to European and Iranian officials.
For years, the Bush administration has tried to convince allies to pressure Iran to give up a program it built secretly over 18 years.
But the Iranian response comes at a difficult time, when Iran is feeling emboldened in the region and the Security Council is juggling a multitude of crises in the Middle East, including the Iraq war and recent fighting in southern Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, a proxy of the Iranian government. The instability has made many council members wary of ratcheting up pressure on Iran, a major oil supplier, if it will mean further confrontation in the region.
“Iran’s response today is clearly a no for Washington,” said George Perkovich, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But it’s hard to see how the U.S. can mobilize others to stop the Iranian program at this point when the last thing anyone wants is more conflict.”
No government official in any country involved would publicly discuss details of the Iranian proposal. Privately, several officials said Iran was willing to consider halting its nuclear program, but not as a precondition for the talks. One Iranian official said that the suspension could come quickly if talks can begin and Iran can get answers to a list of questions included in the offer.
Several officials said Iran wanted a clarification about security assurances, namely whether the Bush administration intended to negotiate on the nuclear issue while seeking to topple the country’s leadership.