GENEVA — The U.S. may hold rare face-to-face negotiations between American and Iranian diplomats at a meeting today on Iran’s nuclear program, a senior official said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the talks, briefed reporters in Geneva. Such a move would reflect Washington’s determination to get results at today’s meeting between Iran and six world powers.
In addition to the United States, the countries include members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany. The U.S. delegation is headed by William Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, and Iran’s chief negotiator is Saeed Jalili.
Even as they prepare for today’s talks, the U.S. and its allies are contemplating new and tighter sanctions on Tehran, in a clear signal of expectations that the negotiations may again end in failure.
The fact that the meeting is taking place at all offers some hope, reflecting both sides’ desire to talk despite a spike in tensions over last week’s revelations that Iran had been secretly building a uranium enrichment plant.
Ahead of Thursday’s negotiations, the State Department stressed its hope that the session would open the door to more in-depth dialogue about ways Iran could alleviate concerns that its emerging nuclear program may be secretly developing nuclear weapons.
If Iran is willing to address the nuclear issues, then there likely will be more meetings, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington.
“That process will take some time,” Crowley said. “We’re not going to make a snap judgment on Thursday. We’re going to see how that meeting goes, evaluate the willingness of Iran to engage on these issues.”
Crowley noted that President Barack Obama has said he intends to take a few months to assess Iran’s position and consult with U.S. partners before deciding what next steps to take.
In Tehran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the talks will be a “test” of the respect for Iran’s rights.
“This meeting is a test to measure the extent of sincerity and commitment of some countries to law and justice,” Ahmadinejad said after a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, according to the official IRNA news agency.
While the talks are formally between Iran’s Jalili and the European Union’s Javier Solana, Solana will follow the lead of the five powers. The U.S., Britain, France, Russia and Germany are sending senior officials.
Only China, which appears most opposed to new U.N. sanctions on Tehran, is sending a relatively low-level representative to the talks.
