U.S. to Iran: Cooperate or face confrontation

GENEVA - The United States said on Saturday after inconclusive international talks with Iran's nuclear envoy that Tehran must choose between cooperation or confrontation and give up sensitive nuclear work.

"We hope the Iranian people understand that their leaders need to make a choice between cooperation, which would bring benefits to all, and confrontation, which can only lead to further isolation," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement after the talks.

Saturday's talks were the first to include the United States.

McCormack said William Burns, the senior U.S. diplomat at the talks, did not meet separately with any member of the Iranian delegation and that EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told Iran it must give a "clear answer" to an offer made by world powers within two weeks.

Europe and the United States want Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, but Iran made clear Saturday that it has no intention of doing so.

Burns did not speak publicly after today's session. McCormack said Burns told Iran that the United States and its allies "are serious that Iran must suspend uranium enrichment to have negotiations involving the United States."

Europe: Still waiting for right answer
Solana told reporters after the talks with Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili that the two would speak either by telephone or personally in two weeks.

"The meeting was constructive, but we didn't get still the answer we were looking for," Solana said.

Jalili asked that Western powers not turn away from negotiations. "Iran is calling on the Western powers to resume the dialogue," he said.

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The presence of Burns had led to hopes of compromise on a formula under which Iran would agree to stop expanding its enrichment activities.

In exchange, six powers — the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany — would hold off on passing new U.N. sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

But doubt was cast over the value of talks less then an hour after they started, when Keyvan Imani, a member of the Iranian delegation, appeared to indicate that Tehran was not prepared to budge on enrichment.

"Suspension — there is no chance for that," he told reporters gathered in the courtyard of Geneva's ornate City Hall, the venue of the negotiations.

There also appeared to be little progress inside the talks.

A Western diplomat in Geneva familiar with their substance said the Iranians were focusing on "the second or third step" of substantial negotiations without addressing what the six powers say is a prerequisite for such talks to happen — a freeze of their enrichment program.

The enrichment issue is key because the activity can produce either fuel for nuclear power stations or the material used in the fissile core of warheads. Iran has defied three sets of U.N. sanctions demanding it cease its program, saying it has a right to its peaceful uses under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But there is growing concern the Islamic Republic might want to build nuclear weapons instead.

Recent Iranian statements suggest Tehran is looking to improve ties with the United States, with officials speaking positively of deliberations by the U.S. administration to open an interests section — an informal diplomatic presence — in Tehran after closing its embassy decades ago.

Presence in Iran?
The U.S. said the Geneva talks would focus only on the nuclear issue, but Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Friday they could also result in agreements to open a U.S. interest-protection bureau and have direct flights between the two nations.

U.S. interests in Iran are now represented by the Swiss Embassy in Tehran.

Iran and the United States broke off diplomatic relations after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Official contacts between the two countries are extremely rare.

Imani said Tehran had not yet received a proposal from the U.S. on opening a representation but would "study it positively" if it did.

He downplayed the presence of Burns — even though the Americans had previously said they would not talk with the Iranians on nuclear issues unless Tehran was ready to stop all enrichment activity. "He is (just) a member of the delegation" of the six countries engaging Iran on the nuclear issue, Imani said.

He also denied that the "freeze-for-freeze" formula — a stop to Iranian enrichment growth in exchange for no new U.N. sanctions — was formally on the agenda of the Geneva talks, saying the two sides were meeting to discuss common points of their diverging plans to ease nuclear tensions.