Bush, Chirac Try to Restore Unified Front as EU Diplomats Resume Nuclear Contact With Iran

U.S. and French leaders today sought to shore up a potential crack in their joint policy to address the Iranian nuclear crisis, after French President Jacques yesterday signaled that France would not support U.N. Security Council sanctions against Tehran (see GSN, Sept. 18; Anne Gearan, Associated Press/Forbes.com, Sept. 19).

In a radio interview aired yesterday, Chirac said he is “never in favor sanctions,” and indicated that European nations could resume direct talks with Iran, thereby dropping an earlier demand that Iran freeze its nuclear activities first, the Washington Post reported (Kessler/Abramowitz, Washington Post, Sept. 19).

“Those talks are going on now,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice confirmed this morning on the CBS “Early Show.”  Still, the United States would continue to pursue sanctions as a result of Iran’s decision to ignore a U.N. Security Council demand that Tehran suspend its uranium enrichment activities, she said.

Chirac met with U.S. President George W. Bush this morning before Bush addresses the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

The two presidents see “eye-to-eye,” Chirac told reporters after the meeting, adding that they “share the same objective and we’re going to continue to strategize together.”

Despite the European willingness to meet with Iran, any possible talks with the United States were still conditioned on Tehran freezing its sensitive nuclear programs, Rice said.

“We have said that if Iran is prepared to suspend that, we’re prepared for the first time in decades, to sit down across the table from the Iranians and talk about ending their nuclear ambitions and providing a path for Iran’s entry into the international system,” she told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“I would meet anywhere with my counterpart at any time,” once Iran instituted the freeze, she said (Gearen, Associated Press)

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