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US calls for multilateral meeting with Iran

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-12 16:00

WASHINGTON: The United States on Friday proposed to hold multilateral talks with Iran to find out if the Islamic Republic is really willing to address nuclear and other concerns.

"If you go to the Iran document, it says the Iranian nation is prepared to enter into dialogue and negotiation and so on and so forth," Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip Crowley told reporters.

"We will seek an early meeting, and we will seek to test Iran's willingness to engage," Crowley said.

On possible theme of the meeting, Crowley said, "From the standpoint of the international community, the central issue that we have is the nuclear issue. If we have talks, we will plan to bring up the nuclear issue."

"We will hope, as we said earlier this week in the IAEA ( International Atomic Energy Agency), that Iran will choose to engage the international community, to address the concerns that we have about the nuclear program."

The senior US official noted that "it's not just a meeting for meeting's sake, it is a meeting to be able to see if Iran is willing to engage us seriously on these issues."

Under the US proposal, the meeting will be involving senior officials from Iran, the permanent five members of the UN Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France -- plus Germany.

Related readings:  US: Iran nearing atomic bomb capacity  China urges early talks on Iran's nuclear program  Iran submits package of proposals to major powers to initiate talks  IAEA board discusses Iran's nuclear program  IAEA: Nuclear 'stalemate' with Iran

The United States made the proposal when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday invited representatives from the six world powers to Tehran for talks, although he said negotiations over his country's right to a nuclear program would be off the table.

Discussions on the nuclear issue were "finished," said Ahmadinejad, who has reiterated Iran will make no compromise with the West over its nuclear program.

Crowley said on Thursday that Iran's new proposal failed to address the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, the "greatest concern" of the United States.

"It is not really responsive to our greatest concern, which is obviously Iran's nuclear program," he said, noting "we'll be looking to see how ... ready Iran is to actually engage. And we will be testing that willingness to engage in the next few weeks."