Rice: UN panel letting nations draft Iran offer
Proposal would allow civil nuclear program

By Christine Hauser
May 11, 2006
The Chicago Tribune
Original Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0605110196may11,1,6508712.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

NEW YORK -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that there were tactical differences among members of the UN Security Council over what to do about Iran's nuclear activities and that negotiators would take several weeks to design an offer that would allow the Iranians to have a civil nuclear program.

On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated that Iran would reject any Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency decision that restricts the country's nuclear activities.

Rice spoke on morning news programs a day after ending talks on Iran with the foreign ministers of the Security Council countries and Germany.

We agreed that we will continue to seek a Security Council resolution but that we would wait for a couple of weeks while the Europeans design an offer to the Iranians that would make clear that they have a choice that would allow them to have a civil nuclear program--if that is indeed what they want, Rice said on ABC's Good Morning America.

She told NBC's Today show that ministers were in agreement that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons or the technology that could lead to them.

We have some tactical differences about how to express that in the Security Council but we have agreement that we need to express it in the Security Council, and I can tell you that, that we believe that to give a couple of weeks for this agreement to come together is a good thing, she said.

But there will be action in the Security Council, she said.

Rice said France, Britain and Germany--the three European countries in the lead in the negotiations with Iran--want to put together a package that shows two courses of action.

Iran can either defy the international community and face isolation and UN Security Council action, or Iran can accept a path to a civil nuclear program that is acceptable to the international community, she said.

That means that enrichment and reprocessing on their territory can't be permitted, she said on NBC.

Later Wednesday, President Bush suggested that a letter from his Iranian counterpart failed to address the most important issue in the international community: when Iran would get rid of its nuclear program.

In an interview with Florida newspapers, Bush made his first public comments on Ahmadinejad's letter, which dwelled on topics including religion.

Although the letter is seen as the first direct communication from an Iranian president to a U.S. president since ties between the countries were severed in 1979, Bush administration officials have said it is not a serious diplomatic overture.

It looks like it did not answer the main question that the world is asking, and that is, `When will you get rid of your nuclear program?' Bush said, according to an article on the St. Petersburg Times Web site.