GENEVA: The United States pressed Iran to prove it has peaceful nuclear ambitions ahead of crunch talks with six world powers in Geneva on Thursday aimed at breaking a deadlock.
Iran meets with the UN Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany a week after the disclosure of a second Iranian uranium enrichment plant, which heightened concerns about the true nature of the programme.
Tehran is already under three sets of United Nations sanctions over its repeated refusal to freeze its uranium enrichment activities, which Western powers fear are aimed at building a nuclear bomb. Iran denies the charge.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Iran on Wednesday that it risks “greater isolation and international pressure” if it fails to give UN inspectors access to nuclear facilities and freeze sensitive activities. Related article: Iran FM in US meet
Western powers, as well as China and Russia, have urged Iran to give the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, access to the previously secret nuclear site near the holy city of Qom.
The revelation of the new site has given the six powers a “collective sense of urgency and impatience in this issue,” a senior US official, who requested anonymity, told reporters in Geneva.
Washington is prepared to enter one-on-one dialogue with Iran at the talks, another senior US official said also on condition of anonymity.
The official said in the US capital that it was up to chief US negotiator William Burns to decide whether the process could be helped by talking to the Iranian side directly.
“It will also provide for an opportunity, if it’s useful in the talks, for there to be bilateral conversations between members of the P5+1 group and the Iranian group in Geneva,” the official added.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran was “on the wrong side of the law” by not declaring its new enrichment plant to his agency before last week.
“Iran was supposed to inform us on the day it was decided to construct the facility. They have not done that,” ElBaradei told Indian TV channel CNN-IBN.
Iran’s atomic chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, said this week that his country would soon give a timetable to inspect the second site. Ahmadinejad: Tehran could allow third party to enrich uranium
The talks between Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and senior officials from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany will be the first since US President Barack Obama took office in January.
The “starting point” for the negotiations will be the six powers’ offer to suspend sanctions against Iran in exchange for Tehran to freeze its nuclear enrichment, said the US official in Geneva.
“We want them to come prepared to focus on the nuclear issue and demonstrate that they are willing to take steps to restore the confidence that’s been lost in their peaceful intentions,” another US official said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signalled for the first time Wednesday a willingness to discuss specifics about its enrichment operations, saying Tehran could allow a third party to enrich uranium for a reactor.
“One of the subjects on the agenda of this negotiation is how we can get fuel for our Tehran reactor,” he was quoted by ISNA news agency as saying.
But the hardline leader remained defiant, insisting that Iran would not be “harmed” whatever the outcome of the talks.
His top negotiator, Jalili, said he was coming to Geneva with a “positive approach”.
