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Washington "Snubbed Iran Offer"    [

    ElBaradei Frets Over Sanctions on Iran
    The Associated Press

    Thursday 18 January 2007

    Paris - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday he was concerned that the U.N. sanctions on Iran could escalate the standoff with Western powers over its suspected weapons program.

    Mohamed El Baradei called for a resumption of negotiations. Only applying pressure, he suggested, could prompt the Islamic republic to follow the path of North Korea, which kicked out U.N. inspectors, pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003 and then conducted its first-ever nuclear test last October.

    "My priority is to keep Iran inside the system," said the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner, speaking in Paris.

    "My worry right now is that each side is sticking to its guns," he said. "The international community "is saying 'sanctions or bust.' Iran is saying 'nuclear enrichment capability or bust' and we need somebody to reach out and be able to find a solution."

    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this week in Europe that now is not the time for the United States to talk to Iran and that Iran appears unready to accept a conditional U.S. offer to join European talks over its nuclear program.

    On Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Tehran was prepared for any possibility in the standoff with the West over its controversial nuclear activities.

    "Today, with the grace of God, we have gone through the arduous passes and we are ready for anything in this path," state-run television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

    France says it is mulling sending an envoy to Tehran for discussions that would focus on Middle East peace, Lebanon and other regional issues rather than the specific question of Iran's nuclear ambitions. But officials at the presidential palace and the Foreign Ministry insist that a decision has not been made and that Iran must first show willingness to negotiate.

    El Baradei, who was to meet later Thursday with France's foreign minister, said: "Any effort by anybody to get the Iranians and the Europeans -- and the Americans in particular -- engaged would be something I welcome.

    "The idea that a dialogue is a reward for good behavior I disagree with," he said. "You have to engage. You have to see where they are coming from, their concerns, their paranoia, their obsessions and then try to change hearts and minds.

    "I don't think sanctions will resolve the issue ... sanctions in my view could lead to escalation on both sides."

    The Security Council imposed limited sanctions to punish Iran for defying a resolution demanding that it suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fissile material to fuel nuclear reactors or, at purer concentrations, the core of nuclear weapons. Iran insists it only wants energy, while Western powers suspect it of seeking nuclear arms.

    El Baradei said the pressure has failed to break a consensus in Iran that the oil-rich nation needs to master the complex process of uranium enrichment. Iran this week said it is moving toward large-scale enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges, which spin uranium gas into enriched material.

    He also suggested that any military strike of Iranian nuclear facilities would ultimately not thwart its ambitions. "What we know is that Iran has the knowledge, but you cannot bomb knowledge," he said.

    El Baradei's said three to four years of intensive inspections in Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency that he heads have not found indications of any undeclared nuclear facilities. But "we never are able to provide 100 percent guarantees," he added.

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    Washington "Snubbed Iran Offer"
    BBC Newsnight

    Thursday 18 January 2007

Iran offered the US a package of concessions in 2003, but it was rejected, a senior former US official has told the BBC's Newsnight program.

    Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion.

    Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility.

    But Vice-President Dick Cheney's office rejected the plan, the official said.

    The offers came in a letter, seen by Newsnight, which was unsigned but which the US state department apparently believed to have been approved by the highest authorities.

    In return for its concessions, Tehran asked Washington to end its hostility, to end sanctions, and to disband the Iranian rebel group the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq and repatriate its members.

    Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had allowed the rebel group to base itself in Iraq, putting it under US power after the invasion.

    One of the then Secretary of State Colin Powell's top aides told the BBC the state department was keen on the plan - but was over-ruled.

    "We thought it was a very propitious moment to do that," Lawrence Wilkerson told Newsnight.

    "But as soon as it got to the White House, and as soon as it got to the Vice-President's office, the old mantra of 'We don't talk to evil'... reasserted itself."

    Observers say the Iranian offer as outlined nearly four years ago corresponds pretty closely to what Washington is demanding from Tehran now.

    Since that time, Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah inflicted significant military losses on the major US ally in the region, Israel, in the 2006 conflict and is now claiming increased political power in Lebanon.

    Palestinian militant group Hamas won power in parliamentary elections a year ago, opening a new chapter of conflict in Gaza and the West Bank.

    The UN Security Council has imposed sanctions on Iran following its refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment programme.

    Iran denies US accusations that its nuclear programme is designed to produce weapons.