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US, Iran Willing to Talk

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  • US, Iran Willing to Talk

    U.S. warms to prospects of new dialogue with Iran

    Powell notes 'encouraging' overtures
    from Islamic republic in recent months


    By Robin Wright

    The United States is open to restoring a dialogue with Iran after "encouraging" moves by the Islamic republic in recent months, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday.

    Iranian leaders have agreed to allow surprise inspections of the country's nuclear energy program, have made overtures to moderate Arab governments and, in the past week, have accepted direct U.S. help as the country struggles with the effects of a devastating earthquake.

    "There are things happening, and therefore we should keep open the possibility of dialogue at an appropriate point in the future," Powell, who is recovering from surgery for prostate cancer, said in an interview. "All of those things taken together show, it seems to me, a new attitude in Iran in dealing with these issues -- not one of total, open generosity. But they realize that the world is watching and the world is prepared to take action."

    Powell's public assessment comes as the administration is reviewing its policy on Iran for the third time since President Bush took office, other U.S. officials said.

    A thorny issue

    Iran has been one of the thorniest issues for the administration. U.S. officials have been deeply divided over whether to engage Iran, as they have attempted with North Korea, or to support regime change, as with Iraq. An original policy review on Iran drifted into an impasse and was revived twice -- before the military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which border Iran.

    But Iran's agreement to international inspections and the U.S. success in getting Libya to surrender its deadliest weapons programs have fostered new interest in seeing whether diplomacy will work.

    The United States still has significant differences with Iran, a country Bush called part of an "axis of evil," along with North Korea and Iraq, in his 2002 State of the Union address. They include Tehran's support of groups such as the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and its opposition to the Middle East peace process.

    Encouraging signs

    U.S. officials have been encouraged by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's meetings with Jordan's King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. They were the first talks since Iran's 1979 revolution with leaders of the two key Arab states that made peace with Israel.

    Diplomatic ties between Iran and Egypt were severed in 1980, when Cairo offered asylum to the deposed shah. Egypt also supported Iraq during the 1980-88 war with Iran. Khatami and Mubarak held talks in Geneva earlier this month on the sidelines of a U.N. technology summit. Iran invited Mubarak to visit in February for a summit of developing nations.

    Jordan's monarch visited Tehran in September, when he tried to broker an arrangement whereby Iran would deport the more than 70 al Qaeda operatives it has detained, Jordanian officials said. The move is pivotal in renewing the U.S.-Iran dialogue that was scrapped in May, when Washington charged that al Qaeda operatives held in Iran were linked to three suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia.

    Jordan's diplomatic initiative continues, with the foreign minister traveling to Iran earlier this month. In two meetings since with Bush, King Abdullah has pressed Washington to consider resuming talks to Iran under U.N. auspices, officials said.

    Other Arab governments have urged the administration to renew talks -- and the top foreign policy team is discussing options, U.S. officials say.

    "There is genuine interest in taking a look again at how we work this dialogue and how we might take a step forward and on what issues," a senior U.S. official said. "But I've seen it before. I've also seen the Iranians screw it up."

    A call for action

    The administration wants additional reassurances. "We've heard promises and predictions, and we want to see action. If we start seeing action -- on al Qaeda, the nuclear issue, Hamas and Hezbollah -- we'll see what we can do," said a senior State Department official. "There's been a lot of talk, but we need to see them walk the walk."

    A day after Iran signed the accord allowing inspections of its nuclear sites, Khatami told a World Council of Churches meeting in Geneva that nuclear weapons were incompatible with Islamic tenets. "As Muslims, our religious faith should not allow us to seek nuclear weapons," Khatami said. "The Islam I know does not have a use for them."

    Indications of a possible thaw in the U.S. policy toward Iran came as the United States dispatched emergency humanitarian aid to the earthquake-ravaged city of Bam, where more than a quarter of the 80,000 population is estimated to have died.

    Condolences from an adversary

    Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage called Iran's U.N. envoy, Javad Zarif, in Tehran to offer help and express condolences shortly after the Friday disaster. He received a call in less than an hour from Zarif accepting the aid -- to be delivered directly, not channeled through the United Nations, as in the past, U.S. officials noted yesterday.

    U.S. military planes arrived in Iran yesterday for the first time since the 1980 attempt to rescue 52 American hostages held in the seized U.S. Embassy, the State Department said.

    The Agency for International Development dispatched a seven-member disaster assistance response team, as well as 77 technical and medical specialists from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Team. Iran, too, is still tentative about the dialogue, although Tehran recently told European and Arab envoys that it is interested in renewing discussions.

    "We appreciate the importance of the humanitarian gesture and the call from Mr. Armitage," Zarif said in a telephone interview from Tehran yesterday. "But the United States said this is for humanitarian purposes, and that is how we have taken it."

    A senior Iranian official added, however, that if Washington is willing to look at the situation "more realistically," then Iran is willing to reciprocate. "What is needed for any cooperation is confidence," the official said.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3834257/
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