Moscow – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is joining international talks on Iran’s nuclear program as the world awaits Tehran’s response to a U.S. offer to bargain with the country’s clerical rulers.
Rice flew to the Russian capital on Wednesday after a quick and heavily guarded visit to Afghanistan, where she said that newly democratic nation has come too far to fall back into terrorism and anarchy.
“Yes, Afghanistan has determined enemies and they are ruthless,” Rice said following a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. “They will not succeed in undermining or rolling back the democratic gains of the Afghan people.”
She also said the United States is committed to Afghanistan for the long haul.
“We are not going to tire, we are not going to leave,” she said.
Iran is expected to dominate discussions that begin today in Moscow at a gathering of foreign ministers from the world’s largest industrial democracies.
Iran received an international proposal on June 6 that offered economic and other incentives in exchange for a long-term freeze on enriching uranium. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has said the government will not respond until at least mid-August.
But Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Tuesday his country does not need negotiations with the U.S. over its nuclear program.
The Bush administration says it has heard varying responses from different quarters in Iran and wants a formal response soon.
“We’ve made very clear that we need an answer soon,” Rice said in an interview with CNN.
The U.S. has cited Afghanistan as a major success story in the fight against terrorism and a beachhead for the spread of democracy in the Muslim world. But there is growing alarm over a resurgent Taliban and growing frustration within Afghanistan over sluggish improvements nearly five years after the repressive Taliban government fell to U.S.-led forces.
Some 10,000 troops from the U.S.-led coalition have been deployed in a major offensive across southern Afghanistan, but the U.S. hopes to reduce its forces in Afghanistan this year while NATO takes over operations in the south.
