SEE FIRST:
Monday, May 14, 2007
Diplobabbling Whoredoms of Doom & the Dhimmise of the American Way
Iran said on Sunday its nuclear standoff with the West will be strictly off the agenda when Iranian officials hold rare talks this month with US diplomats in Baghdad over Iraq.
"We do not want there to be any connection between the nuclear talks and the discussions on Iraq," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters.
"If there is someone who wants to connect the nuclear issue with Iraq then this is something that we do not want," he added.
US and Iranian envoys are to meet in Baghdad on May 28 for talks on Iraqi security, three days ahead of the latest encounter between Iran's nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to break the deadlock in the nuclear crisis.
Iran's leaders have repeatedly said they are ready for full negotiations with the United States, but only if Washington changes its position towards the Islamic republic which it accuses of sponsoring terrorism.
"As we have said, we will not have negotiations with the United States unless they rectify their position," said Hosseini.
He declined to say whether the May 28 meeting on Iraq would be followed by other encounters. "Let the first session convene, do not make speculation and we will see what happens."
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week that Iran would use the talks with US diplomats over Iraq to remind Washington of its "occupiers' duty" in the conflict-torn country. A top Iranian national security official said on Sunday that Iran would be asking Washington for a clear timetable for a full handover of security power to the Iraqi government and a pullout of US troops. "During these talks we will ask the United States to impose security in Iraq and restore power to the Iraqi authorities in line with a clear calendar," said deputy head of the national security council Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli.
"We will also ask the Americans to give a date for the pullout of their troops," he added, according to the ISNA agency. The United States accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons and wants Tehran to freeze sensitive uranium enrichment operations immediately. Iran says its atomic drive is peaceful and that it has every right to the full fuel cycle.
US-Iran relations have been frozen since 1980 after radical students stormed the American embassy in Tehran in the wake of the country's Islamic revolution and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days.
SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan - Iraq ‘s Sunni vice president spoke out Sunday against the upcoming U.S.- Iran talks on the situation in his country, saying the dialogue was "damaging to Iraq‘s sovereignty." "It‘s not good to encourage anybody to talk on behalf of the Iraqi people on their internal and national affairs," al-Hashemi told reporters on the last day of an international conference held by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum .
"This is really damaging to Iraq‘s sovereignty," he said.
Both Iranian and American officials have said that the May 28 talks between the two countries‘ ambassadors will be limited to the security situation in Baghdad and will not delve into the diplomatic deadlock over Iran‘s nuclear program. Iran and the U.S. have not had public bilateral meetings since Washington broke off relations with Tehran over the 1979 hostage crisis. Previous encounters have been at multilateral gatherings.
The two countries held talks under U.N. auspices between 2001 and 2003 regarding Afghanistan . The three-day World Economic Forum brought together some 1,000 businessmen and politicians who focused on ways to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On Saturday, the head of the Iranian delegation, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, found himself staunchly defending his country and lashing out at its enemies — the United States and Israel — saying they were the real cause behind the Mideast‘s conflicts. He said Iran planned to tell the United States during the upcoming Baghdad meeting that its policies in Iraq were "wrong" and have led to failure.
U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice: "Wishes and Dreams" Iranian Art Exhibit
No comments:
Post a Comment