WORLD / Middle East
Rice: Iran letter doesn't help
(AP)
Updated: 2006-05-09 08:58
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed a letter that Iran's
president sent to US President Bush on Monday, saying the first direct
communication from an Iranian leader in 27 years does not help resolve
the standoff over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is interviewed at the offices of the
Associated Press in New York Monday, May 8, 2006. President Bush said
Rice would go to the United Nations on Tuesday to press for a new U.N.
resolution increasing peacekeepers in the Darfur region of Sudan. [AP]
Iran's top nuclear negotiator called the surprise letter a new
"diplomatic opening" between the two countries, but Rice said it was not.
"This letter is not the place that one would find an opening to engage on
the nuclear issue or anything of the sort," the top US diplomat said in
an interview with The Associated Press. "It isn't addressing the issues
that we're dealing with in a concrete way."
Rice said the letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was 17 or
18 pages long and covered history, philosophy and religion.
Rice's comments were the most detailed response from the United States to
the letter, the first from an Iranian head of state to an American
president since the 1979 hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran.
She would not discuss the contents in detail but made clear that the
United States would not change its tack on Iran.
"There's nothing in here that would suggest that we're on any different
course than we were before we got the letter," Rice said.
The United States has had no diplomatic ties and almost no economic
relationship with Iran since the storming of the embassy and the
kidnapping of US diplomats.
Rice was using a two-day trip to the United Nations to confer on the
international response to Iran, but she said she expected no quick action
on sanctions or other measures.
The letter, which was not made public, appeared timed to blunt the US
drive for a UN Security Council vote this week to restrain the Islamic
regime's nuclear ambitions. It was a striking change after the fiery
Ahmadinejad's campaign to vilify Washington and its allies as bullies.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks after a meeting of the
Security Council at the United Nations in New York, May 9, 2006. Foreign
ministers of major powers failed to come up with a joint strategy for
dealing with Iran after Tehran sought to influence the negotiations with
a stunning last-minute diplomatic maneuver, officials said. [Reuters]
Iran contends it has the right to process uranium as fuel in nuclear
reactors to generate electricity. The United States, Britain and France
are concerned that the program is a cover for making nuclear weapons.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush had been briefed on
the letter, which the White House received Monday through the Swiss
Embassy in Tehran. He would not comment on whether it was actually signed
by the Iranian president.
"It does not appear to do anything to address the nuclear concerns" of
the international community, McClellan told reporters traveling on Air
Force One with Bush to Florida.
The Iranian government spokesman who disclosed the communication did not
mention the nuclear standoff and said the missive spoke to the larger
US-Iranian conflict.
The linchpin to any better understanding between Washington and Tehran,
however, would be movement toward a solution of the nuclear issue.
According to government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham, the letter
proposed "new solutions for getting out of international problems and the
current fragile situation of the world."
Elham declined to reveal more, stressing "it is not an open letter." And
when he was asked if the letter could lead to direct US-Iranian
negotiations, he replied: "For the time being, it's just a letter."
In Turkey, Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, said the Iranians
were looking for a positive response but would be patient.
"Perhaps it could lead to a new diplomatic opening. It needs to be given
some time," Larijani said in a television interview. He cautioned that
the "tone of the letter is not something like softening."
The United States has publicly sought renewed contact with Iran through
its ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been authorized to
speak to Iranian officials about security in Iraq.
US officials say the talks await selection of a new Iraqi government and
were to be limited to Iraqi security issues. Such meetings would provide
an opportunity to broaden discussions about the US-Iranian relationship.
Before the Ahmadinejad letter was announced, Bush said he was paying
close attention to threats made against Israel by Ahmadinejad, who has
questioned Israel's right to exist and said the country should be wiped
off the map.
"I think that it's very important for us to take his words very
seriously," Bush told the German newspaper Bild on Friday, according to a
transcript released Sunday. "When people speak, it is important that we
listen carefully to what they say and take them seriously."
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki delivered the letter to the Swiss
ambassador Monday, ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the AP. The
Swiss Embassy acts as a US interest section in the Iranian capital.
The letter appeared as the lead item on several Iranian television and
radio news shows throughout the day. The official IRNA announced the
letter and carried international reaction to it. Iran's only evening
daily, the state-owned Ettalaat, carried a large story on its front page
under the headline: "Important letter from Ahmadinejad to the American
president."
On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad travels to Indonesia, where Foreign Minister
Hassan Wirajuda said, "We support nuclear development for peaceful
purposes, especially energy, but we consistently object to nuclear
weapons proliferation."
The United States is backing efforts by Britain and France to win
Security Council approval for a UN resolution that would threaten
possible further measures if Iran does not suspend uranium enrichment. If
taken to sufficient levels, the process can produce fuel for nuclear
warheads.
Russia and China, the two other veto-holding members of the Security
Council members, oppose sanctions.
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