Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has extended a second political olive branch to Iran in the ongoing efforts to resolve the stalemate over Iran’s developing nuclear program via diplomatic means:
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in another gesture to Tehran, on Friday held out the possibility that she meet Iranian officials if Tehran halts atomic fuel work and agrees to talks with major powers.
Rice, speaking in a series of interviews with U.S. media, added that Iran faced a “moment of truth,” with Russia and China now in full support of robust penalties for Tehran if it does not scale back its nuclear program.
U.N. Security Council permanent members plus Germany finalized on Thursday in Vienna a package of incentives for Iran if it gives up potentially weapons-related nuclear work. Failure to agree would see Iran face “robust measures”, Rice said.
A meeting with Rice would be the highest-level face-to-face contact between U.S. and Iranian officials since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Washington cut ties with Iran in 1980.
“It depends of course on what Iran does,” she said in an interview with National Public Radio.
“If Iran is prepared to verifiably suspend its program and enter into negotiations, then we’ll determine the level (of representation) but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the ministers meet at some point,” she said.
Many U.S. and other major power officials think it is highly unlikely Iran will accept the package of incentives agreed on by the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany.
This is all part of a shift that occurred when Washington veered its policy towards Iran away from growing confrontation into attempted containment. And, so far at least, the efforts have seemingly paid off from the American perspective in terms of building a multi-nation coalition against Iran.
And Iran? And official response to this and the package of incentives hasn’t been issued yet, but government-run television dismissed it and Iran’s President blamed the impasse on (you guessed it) Israel:
Iranian officials kept silent Friday about a meeting of world powers on an incentives package to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table over its nuclear program, while state television dismissed the gathering.
“The noisy 5+1 meeting ended without a new proposal for Iran,” state television commented during its report on Thursday’s gathering in Vienna.
The meeting of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council _ the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China _ plus Germany, made it clear that Iran risks sanctions if it rejects the package.
On Friday, state television also quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as indirectly blaming Israel for the impasse but did not say when he spoke.
“Some states who have not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, want to deprive us from our obvious rights,” television quoted him as saying. He reiterated his position that Tehran has given full cooperation to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees the inspection of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Still, what is happening is an ongoing pincer movement against Iran. Each package of incentives and each offer by Rice rejected by Iran is leaving a paper trail that will be used to justify increasingly larger consequences.
Add to this news reports that at the rate they’re going in their nuclear program Iran will have a bomb in 10 years and it’s clear the issue will remain on the front burner.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.