6-party nuclear talks with Iran deadlocked

GENEVA — International talks on Iran's nuclear ambitions ended in deadlock Saturday, despite the Bush administration's decision to reverse policy and send a senior U.S. official to the table for the first time.

The presence of William Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, represented one of the most important encounters between Iran and the United States since relations were severed after Iran's seizure of the American Embassy in 1979. It came as part of a moment of rare unity among the negotiating partners — the U.S., France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China — who pressed Iran to accept compromise.

But Iran responded with a written document that failed to address the key issue: international demands that it stop enriching uranium. And Iranian diplomats reiterated before the talks that they considered that issue non-negotiable.

Specifically, the world powers wanted Iran to accept a formula known as "freeze-for-freeze" to break the deadlock, under which Iran would not add to its nuclear program, and the U.S. and other nations would not seek new sanctions for six weeks to pave the way for formal negotiations. The formula was originally offered to Iran last year and presented again last month as part of a new proposal ultimately to give Iran economic and political incentives if it stops producing enriched uranium.

But officials involved in Saturday's negotiations said that when they repeatedly pressed the Iranians to say whether they could accept the idea, the question was evaded every time.

"We still didn't get the answer we were looking for," the European Union foreign-policy chief, Javier Solana, said in a news conference after several hours of talks, held in Geneva's City Hall.

Solana reiterated an earlier deadline, given before the talks, that the Iranians had two weeks to formally respond to the proposal.

At the news conference, Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief negotiator, refused to answer whether Iran would accept a freeze, however temporary, of its uranium-enrichment program, but called the negotiating process a "very beautiful endeavor" with a result that he hoped would eventually be "beautiful to behold."

Burns did not speak privately with Jalili. But in a brief intervention in the morning meeting, he said the U.S. was serious in its support for the six-power process and serious that Iran must suspend its production of enriched uranium, the State Department said.

He told his negotiating partners after the talks that the U.S. would push for new punitive sanctions at the U.N. Security Council in September, one participant in the meeting said.

Saturday's meeting was the highest-level meeting between the two countries during the Bush administration, which once branded Iran part of an "axis of evil" and has not ruled out military action against Iran because of its nuclear ambitions.

It comes as the Bush administration, in its final months, has told some of its closest allies that the U.S. was moving forward with a plan to establish an American diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time since the rupture in bilateral relations.

But for some, the Americans have made a diplomatic gesture with Burns' participation at a moment that is hard to understand. America's negotiating partners, particularly Britain, had wanted an American presence when they traveled to Tehran last month to present an enhanced package of incentives. That moment, officials said, would have been both meaningful and more logical.

Instead, Burns came to the table at a time when the Iranians were giving their reply, and there had never been a strong signal that it was going to be different from the past.

Despite the shift in American willingness to talk, one point of policy clearly has not changed: The Bush administration wants to avoid the impression that it is negotiating with Iran before it suspends its production of enriched uranium, which can be used to make electricity or fuel bombs.

Complicating the diplomacy was that before Saturday's talks began, the six powers were not united on a joint strategy on how to proceed. The American delegation had told its partners that Burns' appearance was a one-time event and that Iran had two weeks to decide whether to accept the "freeze-for-freeze" idea.

Germany, Russia and China, by contrast, argued that there should be time to explore the negotiating track with Iran.

But the disagreements evaporated during the talks with Iran. The six powers presented a united front in pushing the Iranians to give a clear answer on whether they were willing to make the good-faith gesture of halting new nuclear activity to pave the way for formal talks.