The White House on Wednesday vowed there would be no direct negotiations with Iran unless it suspends its uranium-enrichment programme.
”Iran has to take that fundamental step when it comes to enriching and reprocessing uranium — they’ve got to suspend all activities,” White House spokesperson Tony Snow told reporters.
Without such a step, Snow said, there will be ”no change in the administration’s posture and the president’s posture when it comes to one-on-one negotiations” over Tehran’s nuclear programme.
The spokesperson made the pronouncement as Washington comes under increasing international pressure to take up a dialogue with Iran, with which it ruptured diplomatic ties a quarter of a century ago.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was to confer with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington on Wednesday, amid speculation he will bear a renewed offer from Iran of direct talks on its disputed nuclear programme.
ElBaradei met in the Austrian capital last week with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, whose government has been lobbying for direct talks with the Americans.
Diplomatic sources told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday that Iran has told ElBaradei that it would agree to talks with Washington only if there are no preconditions, such as the Iranians giving up uranium enrichment.
Meanwhile, the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany were to hold a meeting in London on the Iran nuclear crisis.
Senior officials from Britain, China, France, Russia, the US and Germany are trying to convince a resolute Iran to halt its sensitive nuclear programme.
But the ”big six” nations reportedly have encountered difficulties in reaching a commom position.
US officials have rejected past Iranian overtures, including an 18-page letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to US President George Bush earlier this month, which Tehran billed as a landmark olive branch.
The Washington Post newspaper, citing officials, Iranian analysts and foreign diplomats, reported on Wednesday that Iran, through intermediaries, has requested direct talks with Washington over its nuclear programme.
The US has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since April 1980, following the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 in which 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days.
Washington suspects Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, a belief denied by Tehran, which says its nuclear programme is peaceful. — AFP
