Washington to seek direct nuclear talks with Tehran: U.S. officials

TEHRAN,July 14(MNA) – The Obama administration is preparing to communicate to Iran’s president-elect its desire to hold direct negotiations in the coming weeks over Tehran’s nuclear program, senior U.S. officials said, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. Since his election in June, Hassan Rohani has sent positive signals about his interest in engaging with the international community on the nuclear issue, according to Obama administration officials. Mr. Rohani succeeds President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad early next month. Senior U.S. officials are meeting with representatives of the four other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany, on Tuesday in Brussels to map out their coordinated approach to Mr. Rohani and Tehran, these administration officials said. The White House is eager to quickly test Mr. Rohani, an Islamic cleric, to see if a diplomatic process can gain traction on his watch, according to U.S. officials. Communications from Washington to Tehran have at times been sent through the office of Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign-policy chief, who heads the diplomatic bloc negotiating with Iran, called the P5+1. “We are open to direct talks, and we want to reinforce this in any way [we can],” said a senior U.S. official who is set to take part in the Brussels meeting. “We do see words that indicate Iran might be going in a different direction. But we don’t know this yet,” the official said on Friday. The P5+1 is hoping to schedule a new round of negotiations with Iran by September, U.S. and European officials said. Mr. Rohani, since his surprise election as a centrist in Iran’s political system, has publicly stated his hopes to reinvigorate Tehran’s ties with the U.S. and Europe and pave the way for the lifting of sanctions. The new Iranian leader has said he is open to direct talks with Washington, but also stressed that Iran will continue producing nuclear fuel. “Wisdom tells us both countries, both nations, need to think more about the future and try to sit down and find solutions to past issues and rectify things,” Mr. Rohani told reporters last month. “The rights of the Iranian nation, including nuclear rights, need to be recognized.” The UN’s nuclear watchdog has been seeking access to facilities it says may have been involved in atomic-weapons programs. Iran says its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes. U.S. officials are watching for one early signal about Iran’s intentions: The government’s choice of a chief nuclear negotiator. Saeed Jalili, the current negotiator, took a hard-line position during past talks. U.S. officials said they were surprised at the public attacks, during Iran’s recent presidential campaign, of Mr. Jalili’s negotiating record. They said this might suggest that Tehran is preparing to take a more accommodating line toward the P5+1 and the U.S. “They are arguing that Iran must adopt a more conciliatory approach if it wants to reverse Iran’s downward economic spiral and rebuild its international standing,” wrote Robert Einhorn, who recently stepped down as the State Department’s top nuclear adviser, in an article for Foreign Policy magazine. U.S. officials said they are also still waiting for Tehran to formally respond to the diplomatic package the P5+1 presented to Mr. Jalili during the last round of negotiations in February in Kazakhstan. This package included an easing of some sanctions against Iran’s minerals industry and financial system in return for Tehran ending its production of near weapons-grade nuclear fuel and agreeing to warehouse much of it outside the country. The P5+1 also is seeking to close Iran’s uranium-enrichment facility in Qom, which is fortified in an underground bunker and has begun employing faster centrifuge machines. Some European and U.S. officials have argued that the White House should signal to Mr. Rohani a willingness to more aggressively ease sanctions in return for Tehran rolling back its nuclear program. They have also said the P5+1 should expand its dialogue with Iran to include issues like ending Syria’s civil war. But the senior U.S. official said Friday that Iran needs to offer concrete responses to the previous offers made by the P5+1 in Almaty before any new package might be considered. Tehran has continued to expand its nuclear program in recent months. Iran has been installing and running more advanced centrifuge machines, called the IR-2, at the fuel production facilities at both Qom and the city of Natanz, said U.S. and UN officials. The machines are seen capable of tripling Iran’s production rate of nuclear fuel and drastically reduce the time it would need to break out and produce weapons-grade materials.