MUNICH (AP) — The United States is
prepared to hold direct talks with Iran in the standoff over its nuclear
ambitions, Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday – but he insisted
that Tehran must show it is serious and Washington won’t engage in such
talks “just for the exercise.”
Washington has indicated in the past
that it’s prepared to talk directly with Iran, and talks involving all
five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany have
made little headway. Several rounds of international sanctions have cut
into Iran’s oil sales and financial transactions.
Last month Iran, in a defiant move
ahead of a new round of talks expected soon with the six powers,
announced plans to vastly increase its pace of uranium enrichment. That
can be used to make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of warheads.
Biden told an international security
conference that “there is still time, there is still space for diplomacy
backed by pressure to succeed.” He did not specify any timeframe.
He insisted that “the ball is in the government of Iran’s court” to show that it’s negotiating in good faith.
Asked when Washington might hold direct
talks with Tehran, Biden replied: “When the Iranian leadership, the
supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), is serious.”
The U.S. has long made clear that it is
prepared to meet directly with the Iranian leadership, he added – “that
offer stands but it must be real and tangible and there has to be an
agenda that they’re prepared to speak to.”
We’re not prepared to do it just for the exercise,” Biden told the Munich Security Conference.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov, whose country is a key player in the six-nation talks with Iran,
said he “would strongly support what Vice President Biden said about
the need for incentives to be clearly shown to Iran.”
“We have to convince Iran that it is not about the regime change,” he said.
Iran insists it does not want nuclear
arms and argues it has a right to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear
power program, but suspicion persists that the real aim is nuclear
weapons. The Islamic Republic hid much of its nuclear program until it
was revealed from the outside more than a decade ago. And defying U.N.
Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment, Iran has
instead expanded it.
“Iran should not wait any longer to
take up the willingness Vice President Biden has stressed to hold
substantial negotiations on its nuclear program,” said Foreign Minister
Guido Westerwelle of Germany, whose country has been one of those trying
to resolve the issue. He added that 2013 would be “decisive” for hopes
of a diplomatic solution.
“From our point of view, announcing an
accelerated expansion of uranium enrichment in Iran is the wrong
signal,” Westerwelle said.
Biden underlined that “our policy is not containment – it is to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
The conference – an annual gathering
of top security officials – also gave Biden an opportunity to address
the civil war in Syria. He held separate meetings with Lavrov,
international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, and Syria’s top opposition
leader, Moaz al-Khatib.
Russia is a longtime ally of Syrian
President Bashar Assad. Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported that, on
the sidelines of the conference, Lavrov met for the first time with
al-Khatib – who in December had rejected a previous Russian invitation
for talks.
There was no immediate word on any
outcome of the talks. On Friday, al-Khatib said he was willing to sit
down for talks with Assad’s government to “ease the pain of the Syrian
people.”
In his speech, Biden stressed the
conviction of the U.S. and many others that “President Assad – a tyrant
hell-bent on clinging to power – is no longer fit to lead the Syrian
people and he must go.” He said that “the opposition continues to grow
stronger.”
Despite differences, “we can all agree
on the increasingly deep plight of the Syrian people and the
responsibility of the international community to address that plight,”
he told an audience that included Lavrov.
But Lavrov fired back that “there are a
lot of question marks about the Western approaches to those
developments,” in the region, asking whether supporting antigovernment
protesters justified terrorists, and questioning when it is “permissible
to cooperate with regimes and when is it legitimate to argue for their
removal.”
“We are all interested in the
stability of the Mideast and the African continent,” and for governments
to be democratic and peaceful, Lavrov said. “If we agree on these
common objectives, we could probably agree on some transparent and
common rules for all actors to follow.”
Lavrov also suggested Biden’s statement that Assad must go was counterproductive.
“The persistence of those who say that
priority No. 1 is the removal of President Assad – I think it’s the
single biggest reason for the continued tragedy in Syria.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/02/biden-were-prepared-to-hold-direct-talks-with-iran-but-only-if-they-take-it-seriously/
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