May 03, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 15, 1428

LONDON, May 2: Iran must enter negotiations over its nuclear programme or face increasing international isolation, the US State Department number three stressed before six-party talks on the issue on Wednesday in London.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns, the US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said Iran could choose a path of either diplomacy or confrontation with the international community.

Diplomats from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany were to discuss their next moves on Tehran’s uranium enrichment programme.

“We have a choice of confrontation or diplomacy; we prefer diplomacy,” Burns told Chatham House, an international affairs think-tank, in a speech on US-Iran relations.

“The six of us have been meeting now for the better part of a year and a half and we have been aligned in putting forward the diplomatic overture to the Iranian people and government which is on the table now.

“We’re waiting for an answer. We prefer a path of peaceful negotiations because that is surely

the best way forward, and here’s the way forward, and here’s our offer and we’d like you to accept it.

“But if you cannot accept it, there’s another path called sanctions and international economic and political pressure.”

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is flying to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt for this week’s conference on Iraq.

She has indicated that she would be prepared to talk about other issues with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“Iran is playing a central role in the four great interconnected crises in the Middle East that are part of American foreign policy,” Burns said, citing Tehran’s alleged role in supporting Shia militants in Iraq, militant groups like Hezbollah, Iran itself and its nuclear programme and in the Israel-Palestine conflict.—AFP