Iran Requests Direct Talks on Nuclear Program

[kpete]

Iran Requests Direct Talks on Nuclear Program

By Karl Vick and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 24, 2006; A01

TEHRAN, May 23 -- Iran has followed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent letter to President Bush with explicit requests for direct talks on its nuclear program, according to U.S. officials, Iranian analysts and foreign diplomats.

The eagerness for talks demonstrates a profound change in Iran's political orthodoxy, emphatically erasing a taboo against contact with Washington that has both defined and confined Tehran's public foreign policy for more than a quarter-century, they said.

Though the Tehran government in the past has routinely jailed its citizens on charges of contact with the country it calls the "Great Satan," Ahmadinejad's May 8 letter was implicitly endorsed by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and lavished with praise by perhaps the most conservative ayatollah in the theocratic government.

"You know, two months ago nobody would believe that Mr. Khamenei and Mr. Ahmadinejad together would be trying to get George W. Bush to begin negotiations," said Saeed Laylaz, a former government official and prominent analyst in Tehran. "This is a sign of changing strategy. They realize the situation is dangerous and they should not waste time, that they should reach out."

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301540_pf.html

[madokie]

1. But being the negotiator he* is he will decline

[bigtree]

2. they should talk

as it stands now, we have the Europeans offering deals that the U.S. promptly rejects, even before Iran weighs in.

The only way to get any agreement is for them to talk. But, the Bush regime wants to use them as a foil instead.