WASHINGTON — A top U.S. diplomat heading to Geneva has no plans to meet separately with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, but the mere presence of the Bush administration official at talks between the Iranian negotiator and representatives of other world powers will be a sharp break with past administration policy.
William Burns, America’s third highest-ranking diplomat, will attend talks with the Iranian envoy, Saeed Jalili, in Switzerland on Saturday. The talks are aimed at persuading Iran to halt activities that could lead to the development of atomic weapons. It will be the first time such a high-ranking U.S. official has attended such talks.
Official contacts between Iran and the United States are extremely rare and although Washington is part of a six-nation effort to get Iran to stop enriching and reprocessing uranium, the administration has shunned contacts with Tehran on the matter.
White House press secretary Dana Perino referred to the weekend meeting as a “one-time U.S. participation.”
“We will be there to listen. We are not there to negotiate. And our long-standing principle, that Iran must halt its uranium enrichment before negotiations can take place, remains the same. It’s also been referred to as freeze-to-freeze — if they were to freeze their enrichment, then we would not forward with the consequences of not accepting the (incentives) package, which are more sanctions,” she said.
Perino said the meeting will serve to sharpen the contrast for the Iranian people of life under the current regime there, compared with the opportunities they could have if Iran accepts the incentives deal. And, she added, the meeting will “further clarify the consequences” if Iran does not accept the incentives.
“What this does show is how serious we are when we say that we want to try to solve this diplomatically,” Perino said.
U.S. contact with Iran has recently been limited only to discussions about the security situation in Iraq, where Washington accuses Iran of supporting insurgents. The two countries have not had diplomatic relations since the hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.
Saturday’s meeting comes at a time of acutely heightened tensions between the United States and Iran, particularly after Iranian missile tests last week prompted President Bush’s top aides to warn that the United States would defend its friends and interests in the Middle East.
The tensions with Iran have spilled over into the U.S. presidential campaign.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Iran’s missile tests highlight the need for direct diplomacy as well as tougher threats of economic sanctions and strong incentives to persuade Tehran to change its behavior. John McCain, the Republican seeking the presidency, said the tests demonstrated a need for effective missile defense, including missile defense in Europe and the defense system the U.S. plans with the Czech Republic and Poland.
The gathering in Geneva will be led by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who is seeking a definitive answer from the Iranians to an offer of incentives that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany presented last month.
The package of incentives was accompanied by a letter from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the foreign ministers of the other five countries and sets out a scenario in which Iran would get a temporary reprieve from economic and financial sanctions in exchange for freezing its enrichment activities.
Preliminary negotiations over a permanent halt could then begin, although the United States would not join them until after Iran agrees to fully suspend uranium enrichment, which can produce the fuel needed to make nuclear bombs.
Iran has responded to the offer through the European Union but has indicated it has no plans to stop enriching uranium — the key demand. But there are hopes that Iran may refine its response at Saturday’s meeting.
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