US offers to join Iran talks

By Carol Giacomo and Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States, in a major
diplomatic shift, said on Wednesday it would join key European
powers in talks with Iran if the Islamic Republic suspends its
nuclear enrichment program.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the talks offer
was part of a package of incentives and sanctions whose
“essential elements” have been agreed with Britain, France and
Germany.

Rice, in remarks prepared for delivery at the State
Department, said the United States was determined to “give
diplomacy its very best chance to succeed” in resolving the
nuclear crisis with Iran, which has raised fears that
Washington might at some point decide to take military action.

“Thus to underscore our commitment to a diplomatic solution
and to enhance the prospects for success, as soon as Iran fully
and verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing
activities, the United States will come to the table with our
EU-3 colleagues and meet with Iran’s representatives,” she said
according to a text provided by the State Department.

Rice said Iran would incur “great costs” if it continued to
pursue nuclear weapons.

Crude oil futures fell about $1.5 a barrel in New York
trading following the Rice comments on Iran, the world’s
fourth-largest oil producer.

Escalating tensions over Iran’s nuclear program and
concerns that Iran may choose to retaliate by limiting crude
supplies to the global market have been one of the key drivers
of lofty oil prices.

The United States has often said it was open to talks with
Iran, but the Bush administration has repeatedly dismissed
growing calls from members of the U.S. Congress, former
officials and prominent analysts for dialogue.

Tehran says it is willing to negotiate on the number of
uranium-enriching centrifuges it uses for research, but has
stressed it would not stop running the devices entirely as the
U.N. Security Council has called for.

Iranian officials had no immediate comments on Wednesday on
the U.S. offer.

The United States and the EU 3 have been working with
Russia and China on the package, designed to persuade Iran to
abandon activities the West believes are aimed at producing
nuclear weapons and Tehran insists are intended at making
energy.

U.S. officials, briefing reporters on condition of
anonymity, said Russia and China generally support the package
but there were still some details to negotiate.

Major power foreign ministers are due to meet in Vienna on
Thursday to complete this work.

The United States has not had formal diplomatic relations
with Iran since after the 1979 Islamic revolution when
fundamentalist students held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

Since then, there have been intermittent attempts at
communications, most of them of short-lived or inconsequential.
In 1999, the United States and Iran were involved in so-called
six plus two talks on Afghanistan.

The administration gave short shrift to an unprecedented
letter this month from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
the first direct communication between an Iranian and U.S.
president in decades.

The United States, aiming to win Russian support, has
accepted language in a proposed U.N. Security Council
resolution that would rule out the immediate threat of military
action against Tehran, U.S. and European officials said.

The compromise involves not invoking the whole Chapter 7 of
the U.N. Charter as Washington had been demanding, but citing
specific articles that leave out the one referring to use of
force, the officials said.

Iran has rejected in advance the planned overture from
Britain, France, China, the United States, Russia and Germany
as akin to offering “candies for gold.”

(Additional reporting by Mark Heinrich in Vienna)