U.S. envoy will meet Iran nuke negotiator

WASHINGTON — President Bush has authorized the most significant U.S. diplomatic contact with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, sending the State Department's third-ranking official to Geneva for a meeting this weekend on Iran's nuclear program, administration officials said Tuesday.

The decision appeared to diverge from the administration's insistence that the U.S. would not negotiate with Iran over its nuclear programs unless it first suspended uranium enrichment, as demanded by three U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Echoes of North Korea

Moreover, after months of accusations flying back and forth, the meeting raised the prospect of an intensified diplomatic push to resolve concerns over Iranian nuclear activity, not unlike the lengthy, painstaking talks that led to a deal last month with North Korea.

William Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, will attend a meeting Saturday with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and Iran's nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement today.

At the meeting, Jalili is expected to present Iran's formal response to a package of economic and diplomatic incentives that Germany and the Security Council's five permanent members, Russia, China, France, Britain and the United States, presented Iran in June. Representatives from those countries will also attend.

The United States did not have a representative at the June meeting.

The package, which revived an earlier European offer to provide civilian nuclear assistance and increased trade, met at first with official disdain in Iran but has since prompted conflicting signals among senior Iranian officials.

That led the administration to conclude there could be more chance of a diplomatic resolution than some Iranian declarations and a battery of missile tests last week suggested.

Bush approved the contact "to press the advantage," a second official said. The officials emphasized Burns' participation was a one-time decision, that he would not meet one-on-one with Jalili and that he would reiterate the administration's demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment.

The United States, along with some other countries, contends that the enrichment activity is part of an effort to build nuclear weapons, which Iran denies.

Clifford Kupchan of the Eurasia Group, a consultancy in Washington, said there was now at least "a perception of opportunity" that the international confrontation over Iran could be resolved without war.

Kupchan said that the meeting would be the highest-level contact for Iran with the United States since the revolution, and that, more important, it would deal with the fundamental dispute between Iran and the international community.

Some overtures

After nearly three decades of isolation and hostility, U.S. and Iranian ambassadors have met to discuss security matters in Iraq. Last year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, both attended a regional conference in Egypt, sitting in the same room but not meeting.

The administration has repeatedly said Rice was prepared to hold talks with Iran anywhere on any subject, provided that the country first stop enrichment.

The decision for contact follows what Bush and other administration officials have described as a strategy to intensify sanctions and other punitive measures while offering the prospect of easing Iran's isolation.

"The message to the Iranian government is very clear: that there's a better way forward than isolation, and that is for you to verifiably suspend your enrichment program," Bush said in Germany in June, rebutting reports that he was determined to confront Iran militarily. "And the choice is theirs to make."