nuclear-news

Obama sends conciliatory message to Iran, on civilian nuclear programme

Obama offers to accept Iran’s civilian nuclear programme

* Tehran wants to soothe diplomatic ties with Turkey

* China steps up pressure to prevent any attack on Iran

Daily Times, 6 April 12, WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama has told Iran the United States would accept Tehran having a civilian nuclear programme if the Islamic state can prove it is not seeking atomic weapons, the Washington Post said Friday.

Obama sent such a message to Tehran via Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, who delivered it to Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei
last week, said the newspaper’s foreign affairs columnist David
Ignatius.

“President Obama has signaled Iran that the United States would accept
an Iranian civilian nuclear program if Supreme leader Ali Khamenei can
back up his recent public claim that his nation ‘will never pursue
nuclear weapons’,” said Ignatius. “A few days before traveling to
Iran, Erdogan had held a two-hour meeting with Obama in Seoul, in
which they discussed what Erdogan would tell the ayatollah about the
nuclear issue and Syria,” he wrote.

The United States said Thursday that it still expected Iran to hold
talks with six world powers on the Islamic republic’s disputed nuclear
program to go ahead next week, despite a dispute on the venue being
Istanbul or Baghdad.

According to Ignatius, Obama asked Erdogan to tell Khamenei “that the
Iranians should realize that time is running out for a peaceful
settlement and that Tehran should take advantage of the current window
for negotiations.” However, “Obama didn’t specify whether Iran would
be allowed to enrich uranium domestically as part of civilian program
the United States would endorse. That delicate issue evidently would
be left for the negotiations.”……

Iran is locked in a dispute with the West over its nuclear programme,
which Iran says is for peaceful purposes. Israel and the United States
have threatened military action against Iran unless it abandons
activities which the West suspects are intended to develop nuclear
weapons. China, which has close energy and trade ties with Iran, has
urged a negotiated solution to the dispute and long opposed the use of
force or unilateral sanctions on Iran. The comments by Chen Xiaodong,
head of the Foreign Ministry’s West Asia and North African affairs
division, was China’s strongest warning yet not to use force to
resolve the dispute. “If force is used on Iran, it will certainly
incur retaliation, cause an even greater military clash, worsen
turmoil in the region, threaten the security of the Strait of Hormuz
and other strategic passages, drive up global oil prices and strike a
blow at the world economic recovery,” he said.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C04%5C07%5Cstory_7-4-2012_pg14_1

April 7, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general