BAD COP:

Rice dismisses EU-US nuclear offer to Tehran (Lisbeth Kirk, 11/11/05, EU Observer)

US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has denied there is any EU-US backing of a Russian proposal to resolve a long-running nuclear dispute with Iran.

"There is no US-European proposal to the Iranians, I want to say that categorically," Mrs Rice told reporters, according to the BBC.

"There isn't and there won't be. We are not parties to these negotiations and we don't intend to become parties to the negotiations." [...]

The latest proposal was discussed at length earlier this week at a meeting between Condoleezza Rice and Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear monitoring agency, the New York Times reported. [...]

"The problem with this offer is that if the Iranians have a secret enrichment plant someplace that we don't know about, we're leaving them with the raw material they need," a senior American official was quoted saying.

The US fears Iran could use the highly enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon.

The ideal resolution is for the EU to cut a deal that we aren't party to so that they have to enforce it and we can go beyond it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 11, 2005 7:28 AM