Open to U S offer for talks: Iran's Salehi

Iran considers an offer to negotiate directly with the US a “step forward” and expects to resume meetings with world powers later this month, the Persian Gulf nation’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said.

Talks to defuse tension over Iran’s nuclear work will be held in Kazakhstan on February 25, Salehi said today at the Munich Security Conference. The US will offer bilateral negotiations if the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is prepared for “serious” discussions, US Vice-President Joe Biden said yesterday at the same event.

“We have no such thing as red lines with bilateral negotiations with the US,” Salehi said. “The leader has said it over and over, that negotiation with the US has meaning only when it comes on equal footing.”

The Persian Gulf nation, under dozens of sanctions and a decade-long investigation, insists its nuclear program is peaceful. Israel and the US accuse Iran of pursuing atomic weapons and haven’t ruled out military strikes against nuclear installations.

“No option should be removed from the table,” Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said at the same conference. “When we say it we mean it and we expect others to mean it as well.”

Stalled talks
A meeting in Kazakhstan would be the first round of talks since the breakdown of negotiations between Iran and the so- called P5+1 — which includes China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US — last June in Moscow. The sides had met for over a year without result before talks stalled.

“When the Iranian Supreme Leader is serious, we have made it clear at the outset that we would be prepared to meet bilaterally with the Iranian leadership,” Biden said yesterday at the conference. “We would not do it in secret. That offer stands. It is real and tangible.”

It is unlikely that Iranian negotiations with the US and other powers will go anywhere over the next year, said Vali Nasr, dean of the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, who sat on the panel with Salehi.

“These are good statements but there have to be some ideas about how to get them to the table in a credible way,” said Nasr, an Iranian-born adviser to the US government. “What would be even worse would be to get them to the table and then see them fail.”

Moscow talks
The Moscow talks broke down after the P5+1 wanted Iran to stop nuclear work and shutter facilities while International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors cleared it of suspicion. Iran wanted broader regional-security issues, including violence in Syria and Bahrain, included on the agenda.

“No prudent person looks for conflict,” Salehi said. “We are for engagement but we value very dearly our independence. We are ready for engagement but only on an equal footing.”

Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, Prince Turki al- Faisal, criticised both Iranian and US actions in West Asia. Iran is “interfering” in Arab affairs while the US is acting like a ‘‘pussy cat” in trying to resolve regional problems, he said.

“The only way we can reach a fair and workable solution to the issue is through a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction,” Turki said. “Sanctions against Iran are not enough. The zone free of weapons of mass destruction is the only way that we can deal fairly with this issue.”

A West Asia free of atomic, chemical and biological weapons would need to apply to all the region’s countries and would need to come with security guarantees from recognised nuclear powers, Turki said.

Israel neither confirms nor denies its reputed nuclear weapons arsenal.