AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
Washington: The United States on Thursday ruled out any direct discussions with Iran on the nuclear standoff after the Islamic republic offered to negotiate with Washington on another thorny subject — Iraq.
On the same day of the release of a key study pinpointing Iran as the United States' biggest threat, the White House said any talks between the US and Iran on efforts to stabilize Iraq would not take up the nuclear crisis or other disputes and that negotiators would have a “very narrow mandate.”
“The nuclear issue is being discussed at the United Nations among diplomats of the Security Council,” spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters. “That's a separate issue.”
Asked whether negotiations on Iraq would be a step forward in US-Iran relations, McClellan replied: “Our views and concerns regarding the regime in Iran are very clear, and we have a number of concerns about the regime. The other issues are separate from this issue.”
White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley said Iran's offer to talk directly about Iraq was a sign that Tehran's leaders “are finally beginning to listen” to the United States.
“The idea that we don't talk to Iran is remarkable. We're talking to Iran all the time: We make statements, they make statements,” Hadley said.
But he said that any talks about Iraq's future relations with neighboring Iran would have to be handled by Iraqi leaders, as opposed to the US negotiating on Iraq's behalf.
As for Iran's nuclear program, however, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said it would be fruitless to try to negotiate with Tehran in view of the country's track record on the issue.
“The problem here is not the absence of discussions between the United States and Iran, the problem is what Iran is doing,” Burns told reporters.
“We see an Iranian government, particularly since (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad came to office, that seems bound and determined to create a nuclear weapons capability,” he added.
“We have made the calculation … that it is better to try to isolate the Iranian government.”
Burns said he was confident that the UN Security Council will succeed in reaching agreement on appropriate action against Iran.
“We're concentrating our attention on that multilateral forum, convinced that if the coalition of countries that is together in New York can send a united message to Iran, that it has to roll back its nuclear activities and return to negotiations, that's the best way to deal with it,” Burns said. “We choose that course, to isolate and shine the spotlight on the Iranians.”
Earlier Thursday, both the US and Iran expressed willingness to engage in discussions about the situation in Iraq.
McClellan said the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, was “authorized to speak with Iranians about issues specifically related to Iraq.”
“Remember we previously have had discussions with Iran about issues relating to Afghanistan, but this is a very narrow mandate dealing specifically with issues relating to Iraq,” the spokesman said.
The US response to Tehran's overtures came on the same day that Washington released a quadrennial national security policy planning document that identified Iran as perhaps the country's leading threat.
“We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran,” the White House said in a blueprint called the “National Security Stategy” of the United States.
In the document the United States warned states like North Korea and especially Iran that it will take preemptive military action if necessary to protect itself.
If US-Iranian negotiations were to occur on Iraq or any subject, it would be the first direct talks since Washington broke ties with Tehran in April 1980 in the wake of the Islamic revolution that ousted the US-backed Shah, and since some 70 Americans were taken hostage from the US embassy in Tehran.
The last time the two sides sat at the same table was in 2001 in a room with seven other countries, including Russia, for discussions about Afghanistan.
Until now, the arch-rivals have resisted a dialogue on Iraq, despite Iran's strong ties to the major Shiite parties who dominate Baghdad's political scene, and the growing violence that threatens to rip Iraq apart.
Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the discussions with Tehran on the Iraq issue would likely focus on concerns expressed in the past by the US administration that Iran was seeking to undermine its efforts in Iraq.
“Iran is doing things in Iraq that we don't think are helpful or supportive of Iraq,” Ereli said. “Ambassador Khalilzad is authorized to raise those matters directly with the Iranians in Iraq.”
