Nuclear talks with Iran 'will be led by EU Three': Bush

Nuclear talks with Iran 'will be led by EU Three': Bush

New York (Platts)--21Mar2006

Any negotiations with Iran over the status of the country's nuclear
development program "will be led by the EU Three," US President George W. Bush
said Tuesday in a televised press briefing.

Asked at the hastily arranged press conference in Washington about the
pending talks between the US and Iran over the continued instability in Iraq,
Bush noted that several months ago he gave US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay
Khalilzad "permission to explain to the Iranians what we didn't like about
their involvement in Iraq. I thought it was important for them to hear first
hand..."

But Bush denied that there were any plans to have those talks include the
ongoing standoff with Iran over that country's nuclear development program.
"Our negotiations with Iran on the nuclear weapons will be led by the EU
Three," Bush said in a reference to negotiations that have been led by the UK,
France and Germany. "That's important because the Iranians must hear there is
a unified voice that says that they shall not have the capacity to make a
nuclear weapon or the knowledge of how to make a nuclear weapon, for the sake
of the security of the world.... It's important for our citizens to understand
that we have to deal with that issue diplomatically now. And the reason why is
because if the Iranians were to have a nuclear weapon they could blackmail the
world..."

In addition to the European negotiators, both Russia and China are part
of efforts to get Tehran to halt its nuclear development program.
Separately, Bush was asked whether he agreed with the recent assessment
of former Iraqi interim president Iyad Alawi that Iraq is already involved in
a civil war.

"I do not," Bush said. "There are other voices coming out of Iraq, other
than Mr. Alawi.... We all recognize that there is a violence, that there is
sectarian violence. But the way I look at the situation is that the Iraqis
took a look and decided not to go to civil war..."

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