... In hopes of staving off disaster.
Good news from the US-Iran front:
US and Iran holding 'secret' talks on nuclear programme
Iran and the United States have been engaged in secret "back channel" discussions for the past five years on Iran's nuclear programme and the broader relationship between the two sworn enemies, The Independent can reveal.
One of the participants, former senior US diplomat Thomas Pickering, explained that a group of former American diplomats and experts had been meeting with Iranian academics and policy advisers "in a lot of different places, although not in the US or Iran".
...
The Bush administration "did not discourage us," he added.
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The revelation about the existence of an Iran-US back channel coincides with the recent publication by three of its American members, including Mr Pickering, of proposals aimed at overcoming the deadlock between Iran and the West over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. The initiative addresses the crunch issue of Iran's right to enrich uranium on its own soil while providing guarantees that the nuclear fuel will not be diverted for military purposes.
Mr Pickering spoke of a "rather positive" reaction to the plan, which provides for an international consortium to jointly manage and run uranium enrichment on Iranian soil.
However, the Bush administration has not responded, and remains wedded to its current policy of sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to halt uranium enrichment in line with UN demands, while offering the opportunity to enrich uranium outside the country through a Russian consortium. A Foreign Office spokesman said Britain was "aware" of the proposals but did not have an official response. The Iranian government, according to Mr Pickering, has let it be known that "they would not respond unless it was offered officially".
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The Luers-Pickering-Walsh initiative gives Iran the opportunity to prove that its nuclear intentions are peaceful by yielding to the Iranians' key demand for a uranium enrichment programme on Iranian soil. The enrichment activities would take place under the supervision of a jointly managed international consortium. The plan is the most detailed of its kind since 2005. Conditions to be negotiated with Iran would include:
*a UN Security Council resolution authorising the arrangement and specifying that if Iran breaks the agreement, member states would be authorised to take punitive action;
*Iran would be barred from producing highly enriched uranium, which is weapons grade fuel, or reprocessed plutonium, which can be an alternative route to producing a bomb;
*Iran would implement the stringent inspection measures in the Additional Protocol to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty;
*Iran would commit itself to building only "safe" light-water reactors.
Hopefully, with the release of this information and meetings between Luers, Pickering, Walsh and Bush, both countries could actually come to a solution where Iran can peacefully enrich uranium without sanctions or threat of war. Of course this require that Bush acknowledge and pursue the idea and offer it to Tehran where the choice become's Tehran's to make.
If they don't acknowledge it or fail to agree to it, at least the US
tried to avert war...
But something tells me Iran will take the deal... but something also tells me that the US won't
offer it.
I guess with all the sabre-ratteling, it's good to see that others are willing to offer a an olive branch.
