http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JG03Ak02.html
















Middle East
Jul 3, 2008



Iran willing to talk
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

This week, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is in New York to attend a meeting of the United Nations' Economic and Social Council, as well as to shore up support for Iran's embattled diplomacy.

Increasingly, Mottaki has been playing a leading role in the nuclear crisis and much depends on his ability to conduct skillful diplomacy with regard to the "Iran Six" group that has recently proposed a package of incentives to Iran in exchange for Iran' suspension of its uranium-enrichment program. The group comprises the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.

On Monday, Mottaki met with several US editors and reporters at



Iran's mission to the UN, and in addition to sounding conciliatory and in favor of earnest negotiations without preconditions, he promised to reply to the letter of the "Iran Six" foreign ministers accompanying their package "within a couple of weeks".

At the outset of his interview, Mottaki emphasized the need to have a "correct analysis" of situations, otherwise it would lead to "incorrect policies". He also emphasized the importance of "common understanding" of problems and hinted at his own flexibility by stating that "the first word a diplomat learns is compromise".

On the question of Israel's reported preparedness to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Mottaki dismissed that possibility as "near zero" and blamed Israel for seeking to assert itself through such threats partly to make up for its "defeat in the hands of Lebanese resistance".

When asked about the US threat, Mottaki stated that this issue "has appeared in American public every six months" and then went on to add that "some our friends" informed Iran last year that the attack was imminent and even "furnished the date, the places that would be hit" and "other detailed information". Mottaki interpreted this as a form of "psychological warfare" and added that "we do not deny that it is not plausible, yet what we deny is that the consequences are predictable". However, Mottaki doubted that the American public would be willing to embrace such a nightmare scenario.

With respect to the recent news of President George W Bush's authorization of covert action inside Iran, Mottaki said that for some 30 years the US has pursued coercive policies toward Iran and now it is time for US leaders "to sit down and rethink their policy". He reminded his audience that the "Iranian people will never trade the 'sweet' of their independence with the 'bitterness' of American dependency".

In response to a question about the impact of sanctions on Iran, Mottaki stated that the easiest thing in the world today is trade and then meaningfully added, "right now some US companies are doing business with Iran but we will not name them for obvious reasons". He also added that, "in the past six months, we have signed major contracts with European companies and with the Asian countries". The deals, he said, have been even more important and Iran's non-oil exports in 2007 have been twice that of the preceding year, 2006.

Mottaki accused the US of "taking risks out of Europe's pocket" and charged that when the US's own interests are at stake, such as with regard to Iraq's oil, Europe is kept out. Still, Mottaki sounded conciliatory toward the US and encouraged cultural and academic exchanges. He proposed direct flights between US and Iran and defended the idea of a US interests section in Tehran. He also defended the US-Iran dialogue on Iraq's security and described the end goal of this dialogue to be none other than finding a solution for Iraq's crisis.

On the question of presumptive Democratic US presidential candidate Barack Obama's idea of sitting down with Iranians without setting any preconditions, Mottaki stated that Iran looks at real policies and not the declared policies and has learned through time not to pin its hopes on this or that US candidate.

With respect to the nuclear negotiations, Mottaki indicated that the recent Tehran trip of European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, was "serious and somewhat different from the past" and emphasized the "common points" between Iran's package and the "Iran Six" package of incentives and added that he was happy that the latter nations had viewed Iran's package "positively".

"We see dialogue as a sound basis for pursuing this issue ... and on this basis the two packages present a good potential for translating into a work agenda ... dialogue is a good means to reach common points acceptable to all. This appears to be the message of '5 +1' [Iran Six] letter to me that raises the possibility of a resolution."

On the other hand, Mottaki refused to answer questions about the demand for Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program and confined himself to saying that the commencement of a new round of negotiations was a distinct possibility. He denied adamantly that Iran was proliferating nuclear weapons and said that Iran "saw no need for nuclear weapons" which are "weapons of the past".

On Iran-Syria relations and Syria's on-going talks with Israel, Mottaki described those relations as solid and supported Syria's bid to regain its lost territory (for example, the Golan Heights) from Israel.

Regarding Afghanistan, Mottaki blamed the US's past policies as a root cause of extremism and reminded his audience that at one point the US even trained those extremists (fighting the Soviets) and then, when they rose to power, the US fought them and dislodged them from Kabul and then "met them at Mousa Ghale and in European capitals; where are they going with this policy?"

Mottaki insisted that Iran has never benefited from extremism in the region and described Iran's "biggest interest in the region" as "regional stability". He claimed that the security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating and that most Afghani people feel less secure now than they did in 2007, and "less in 2007 than they did in 2006, etc".

Turning to Iraq, Mottaki predicted that the Iraqi government would not sign the controversial security pact with the US that allows a long-term US military presence in Iraq. According to Mottaki, the US has artificially linked that pact with Iraq's current status under UN's Chapter IIV, adding that the two main reasons for that status, namely Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and its occupation of Kuwait, are no longer relevant and therefore Iraq today should not be "penalized for Saddam Hussain's crimes".

"The US uses the threat of terrorism to justify its presence ... the US armed the first Iraqi militia and even today there are several militias that operate outside the purview of the Iraqi government and are supported by the US."

Mottaki described Iran as "one of the biggest supporters of the Iraqi government" and confirmed that Iran played a mediating role between Baghdad and the Shi'ite militias in Basra and urged the US government to take the US-Iran dialogue on Iraq's security more seriously. The reason Iran was sensitive to the US-Iraq security pact was, according to Mottaki, due to the fact that "security issues impact the whole region", which is why Iran pursues the goal of "collective security".

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.


Asia Times Online

Okay, Iran wants to talk, like, the last 5 years with 6 other countries, then, the Deal is done, right?

Bush Says Diplomacy Is First Choice to Deal With Iran.

Iran can take the Russians nuclear offer and this will be the end of it. Right?

Bret Baier.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. There have been a spate of recent stories about possible military action against Iran before the end of the year, if not by the U.S. than by Israel. And that prompted Iranian officials to say, if they're attacked they'll essentially shut down the Strait of Hormuz. One, how confident are you that Israel will not act independently as the diplomatic process moves forward? And two, what do you make of the mixed messages out of Iran -- one of defiance and one of willingness to negotiate?

THE PRESIDENT: I have always said that all options are on the table, but the first option for the United States is to solve this problem diplomatically. I've also make it clear -- made it clear that you can't solve a problem diplomatically unless there are other people at the table with you. And that is why we have been pursuing multilateral diplomacy when it comes to convincing the Iranians that the free world is sincere about, you know, insisting that they not have the technologies necessary to develop a nuclear weapon.

And we're making progress along those lines. There's been the numerous Security Council resolutions, and in my recent trip to Europe I was very encouraged to see these leaders stand up and speak out about the need to keep our coalition active and keep the pressure on.

I will talk to Martha Raddatz.

Q Let me follow up on that. Would you strongly discourage Israel from going after Iran militarily? And do you believe when you leave office Iran will be pursuing a nuclear weapon?

THE PRESIDENT: I have made it very clear to all parties that the first option ought to be to solve this problem diplomatically. And the best way to solve it diplomatically is for the United States to work with other nations to send a focused message, and that is, that you will be isolated and you will have economic hardship if you continue trying to enrich.

As you might remember, I worked closely with Vladimir Putin on this issue, when I said that -- when asked at one of these innumerable press conferences, did you -- do you think they ought to have a civilian nuclear program, I said, of course, they should, but they can't be trusted to enrich.

And therefore, I agree with Russia that Russia -- when Russia said she will provide enriched uranium for a civilian nuclear power program and will collect the enriched uranium, thereby negating the need for the Iranian regime to enrich at all.

And so we will continue working diplomatically.

Listen, thank you very much. I've enjoyed being with you. I hope you've enjoyed being with me. You have? Thank you.

END 10:48 A.M. EDT CSPAN-

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...7/20080702.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

That is all!!

He's afraid to even mention Israel.
I hope they listen to him, though.
If it was Netanyahu, forget it, but
with Olmert, there is some sanity.