Jakarta, Indonesia – Iran’s president said today he was ready to negotiate with Western powers over Tehran’s nuclear program but warned that threats would make any talks more difficult.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his comments after key U.N. Security Council members agreed to present Tehran with a choice of incentives or sanctions in deciding whether to suspend uranium enrichment.
The Iranian leader told Indonesia’s Metro TV station he was unconcerned about the possibility of U.N. sanctions, saying the West would be the big loser if his country were isolated from the world community.
“We do not need to be dependent on others,” he said, adding that international isolation would serve only to “motivate” the country’s nuclear scientists.
He also said Western nations with large stocks of nuclear weapons were practicing “double standards” in pressing Iran to stop its peaceful nuclear program.
Asked what it would take to begin talks with the United States to resolve the standoff, he said the country would talk to any nation except Israel, which Iran does not recognize.
While Washington has said it favors a diplomatic end to the dispute, it hasn’t ruled out military force and is pushing at the United Nations for economic sanctions against Iran.
Despite Ahmadinejad’s hardline rhetoric, there were hints of a possible solution to the escalating international crisis from other quarters.
In a letter to Time magazine published on its website Wednesday, a representative of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered new possibilities for solving the impasse with the United States and its allies on the issue.
Hassan Rohani, Iran’s former top nuclear negotiator, said Teh ran would consider ratifying an International Atomic Energy Agency protocol that provides for intrusive and snap inspections and would also address the question of preventing a pullout from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said of the Time letter: “We’ve seen it. … I think there real ly isn’t anything new in it.”
He said the letter does not deal at all with enrichment.
The current Iranian negotiator, Ali Larijani, said Tuesday that Tehran had no intention of withdrawing from the treaty and promised to cooperate if the U.N. atomic watchdog agency, rather than the Security Council, dealt with the issue of its nuclear program.
