Learn mandarin - Bush: Iran's initial response 'positive'

WORLD / Middle East

Bush: Iran's initial response 'positive'
(AP)
Updated: 2006-06-07 08:58

President Bush said Tuesday that Iran's initial response to a package of
incentives and threats on the nuclear impasse "sounds like a positive
step to me."

President Bush, right, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and Commissioner of Customs
at the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection W. Ralph Basham, left,
visit the Laredo Border Patrol Sector Headquarters in Laredo, Texas,
Tuesday, June 6, 2006. [AP]

"We will see if the Iranians take our offer seriously," Bush said in
Laredo, Texas, where he was speaking about immigration overhaul. "The
choice is theirs to make.

"I have said the United States will come and sit down at the table with
them so long as they are willing to suspend their enrichment in a
verifiable way," Bush said. "So it sounds like a positive response to me."

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana laid out the potential
rewards and consequences Tuesday during a visit to Tehran. He later told
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by phone that the Iranians had said
they would need time to consider the proposal, State Department spokesman
Sean McCormack said.

Solana called the discussions "very useful and constructive," McCormack
said.

Bush said in Laredo that he wanted to resolve the issue with Iran
diplomatically.

Earlier in the day, the administration said it would give Iran "a little
bit of space" to consider the package but added that the offer was not
open-ended.

"It's a matter of weeks, not months," McCormack said, echoing the vague
deadline set out by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before the
package was presented to Tehran.

U.S. officials would not discuss specifics, saying that Iran needed time
to review the package and ask questions in private.

"We want to give this every opportunity to succeed," McCormack said. "The
diplomacy, I would say, is at a sensitive stage."

The package includes a promise of Western technical help in developing
peaceful civilian nuclear energy if Iran stops enriching uranium, a
waiver of U.S. legal restrictions to allow export of some agricultural
technology, access to U.S. aircraft parts or new Boeing Co. planes to
upgrade Iran's aging fleet and U.S. and European backing for Iran to join
the World Trade Organization, diplomats and others said.

The proposal was agreed on last week by the United States, Britain,
France, China and Russia �� the five veto-wielding members of the U.N.
Security Council, plus Germany. Those nations would be expected to move
for Security Council sanctions such as travel and financial restrictions
on Iranian officials if Tehran does not take the deal or if negotiations
fall apart.

Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said the initiative contains
"positive steps" but also some "ambiguities."

"There are robust measures on both sides, both the incentive side as well
as the disincentive side," McCormack said. "It presents the Iranian
government with a very clear choice on both sides of the road."

The United States reversed course last week and offered to bargain
directly with the Iranians if they first put disputed nuclear development
on hold. The Bush administration accuses Iran of bankrolling terrorism
and criticizes anti-Semitic statements by its leader.

Although some in the administration worry about conferring legitimacy on
Iran's leaders by talking face to face, Rice decided about six weeks ago
that only direct U.S. involvement could revive European-led talks that
stalled last year.

The package presented to Tehran on Tuesday would be on the table for any
new talks involving the United States.

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