State Department
18 July 2008
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she hopes Saturday's criticalmeeting with Iran's nuclear negotiator in Geneva will mark a change ofcourse for Tehran in its nuclear dispute with the internationalcommunity. Rice is sending a senior envoy to take part in the talks.VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.
Thedispatch of Undersecretary of State William Burns to the Genevameeting is a policy shift for the Bush administration, which hadshunned direct contacts with Tehran on the nuclear issue in the absenceof an Iranian commitment to stop uranium enrichment.
At a StateDepartment news conference with Kosovo political leaders, Rice said shehopes the U.S. gesture will encourage Iran to accept internationalincentives and halt its pursuit of technology that could lead to anuclear weapon:
"We have been very clear that any country canchange course," Rice said. "The United States doesn't have anypermanent enemies, and we hope that the signal that we're sending thatwe fully support the track that Iran could take for a betterrelationship with the international community is one that the UnitedStates stands fully behind. We will see what happens on Saturday butthat is the message that Bill Burns will be delivering."
Burns,the third-ranking State department official, will join European Unionchief diplomat Javier Solana and diplomats from the other permanentU.N. Security Council member countries and Germany, theP-Five-Plus-One, in the meeting with Iranian envoy Saeed Jalili.
Iranis expected to give its reply to an enhanced package of incentivesoffered by the P-Five-Plus-One in June to try to persuade Tehran tostop its enrichment drive and return to negotiations over its nuclearprogram.
A suspension of enrichment would mean a suspension ofU.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran. Solana has also proposeda six-week period of so-called "pre-negotiations" in which there wouldbe no new sanctions added if Iran stopped adding to its enrichmentcapacity.
In her comments here, Rice said the decision to haveBurns join the Geneva meeting is a "strong signal" to the world thatthe Bush administration is serious about nuclear diplomacy with Iran,but that it has not softened its fundamental demand that Tehran muststop enrichment to end its political isolation:
"I would remindyou that I signed the letter that sent the proposal forward to theIranian regime," she noted. "And this is, in a sense, the bookend --Bill Burns will go to receive the Iranian response. But it should bevery clear to everyone: the United States has a condition for thebeginning of negotiations with Iran. And that condition remains theverifiable suspension of Iran's enrichment and processing activities."
U.S.officials have declined to speculate what Iran's reply may be. But theysay the range of comments by Tehran officials in recent weeks suggests,at least, an internal debate about whether to continue uraniumenrichment - which the Tehran government has said is part of a peacefulnuclear program.