WASHINGTON — For now, the Bush administration has chosen compromise over confrontation in dealing with Iran’s disputed nuclear program with a dramatic gesture intended to demonstrate commitment to a negotiated solution.
In breaking with past policy to send a top diplomat to weekend talks with Iran’s chief nuclear envoy, the administration has in its waning months refined its position on contact with the hard-line Iranian regime, much as it did in the ongoing effort to rid North Korea of its atomic weapons, which has shown recent promise.
U.S. officials dismissed comparisons Wednesday between the administration’s approach to the two last members of President Bush’s “axis of evil,” but they acknowledged broad similarities in the endgame.
They said the participation of William Burns, the State Department’s third-ranking diplomat, in Saturday’s meeting in Switzerland is aimed at proving America’s resolve to peacefully prevent Iran from developing nuclear arms while exploiting possible splits in the hard-line Islamic government.
“What this does show is how serious we are when we say that we want to try to solve this diplomatically,” White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters a day after Bush signed off on dispatching Burns to the meeting with Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili.
At the meeting being led by European Union foreign-policy chief Javier Solana, Jalili is expected to give Iran’s definitive answer to incentives offered last month by the United States and five other nations in exchange for Iran’s suspension of activities that can produce the ingredients needed for a bomb.
Burns will not negotiate with Jalili, but officials said he will listen to the presentation of Iran’s final answer to the package.
Burns will restate a U.S. offer for formal negotiations with Iran if it suspends uranium enrichment and reprocessing. He will warn that if the deal is not accepted, the Iranian government can expect more sanctions to be imposed on its banking and financial sectors. He will remind Iran that Bush has not removed the military option.
The decision to send Burns breaks with long-standing policy under which the United States had insisted it would not meet with Iranian officials outside of talks on the security situation in Iraq unless Iran first suspended enrichment and reprocessing.
Officials denied an all-out policy shift, although they allowed that a not-so-subtle shift was underway.
