Tehran hails nuclear proposal as positive: US president chides allies
MADRID, July 7: Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said on Friday he had a positive impression of a proposal for Tehran to halt nuclear enrichment, but would not be rushed into responding.
Western powers have called upon Iran to make a full reply to an offer of a package of incentives for it to halt nuclear enrichment by a July 15 Group of Eight (G8) summit in St Petersburg. Tehran says it will respond to the offer by Aug 22.
Speaking through an interpreter, Mr Larijani said: “The Iranian nuclear issue is not so complicated that it cannot be resolved by dialogue.”
He told a news conference during a visit to Madrid there was no reason to be pessimistic about an impasse, but that setting time limits undermined confidence on both sides.
“We don’t need people to set us deadlines,” he said.
“This pressure creates an atmosphere of a lack of trust and doubt between the two parties,” he said, answering a question about the timing of Iran’s response.
Mr Larijani also said his meeting with the European Union’s foreign policy chief had been ‘very fruitful and constructive’.
Mr Larijani met Javier Solana for a private dinner in Brussels on Thursday, before his visit to Spain.
Bush chides partners: US President George Bush said on Friday that he was trying to get some US partners in diplomacy towards Iran and North Korea to see past their ‘economic interests’ and take a harder line.
He did not name names, but he had been asked about opposition from Russia and China to imposing sanctions on Iran.
“Some nations are more comfortable with sanctions than other nations. And part of the issue we face in some of these countries is that they’ve got economic interests,” Bush said at a press conference in Chicago.
“And part of our objective is to make sure that national security interests, security-of-the-world interests, trump economic interests. And sometimes that takes a while to get people focused in the right direction,” he said.
“The first step of a diplomatic solution is for there to be a common goal agreed upon by those of us participating in the process,” said the US president. “I’m realistic about how things move in the world.”
“It takes a while for a problem to fester and grow, and then it takes a while to solve them diplomatically,” he said. “That’s just the nature of diplomacy. I wish we could solve them overnight, but I’m a realistic person.”
Mr Bush said he expected both Iran and North Korea to be hot topics at the July 15-17 Group of Eight summit of major industrialized democracies plus Russia in Saint Petersburg.
“The G-8 will be an opportunity for those of us involved with this issue to make it clear to the Iranians that we’re firm in our resolve for them not to have a nuclear weapon,” said the US president.
“I talked to (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin about North Korea; I also talked to him about Iran. I believe he understands the dangers of the Iranians having a nuclear weapon,” said Bush.—AFP
