West Has Open Mind on Iran Crisis, Officials Say

Western nations might be willing to show more flexibility toward Tehran to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis, but they continue to require a halt to the nation’s uranium enrichment program before starting talks, the Financial Times reported yesterday (see GSN, May 4).

“We can be imaginative and flexible in terms of exploring where negotiations might go,” said one senior British official.

Offering one possible solution to the impasse, the official suggested that Iran might need to suspend its program for only a fixed term, such as three or six months.  Such a plan could ease Iranian fears that drawn out negotiations could freeze the nation’s nuclear activities indefinitely, according to the Times.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and lead Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani are expected to meet this week, the Times reported.

“We need to get through this very difficult minuet between Solana and Larijani about how to get to the table," said U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns.  “Because, once we get to the table, either side can raise anything they wish.  So we are certainly interested in what they have to say and we will listen (to) what they have to say at the table.”

The British official also suggested that his nation would listen seriously to a proposal once made by Tehran to allow an international consortium to operate a uranium enrichment facility in Iran.  Western officials have previously rejected this approach, the Times reported (Dombey/Khalaf, Financial Times, May 6).

Meanwhile, Iran has convicted and sentenced a man charged with providing nuclear information to a dissident group, Reuters reported Saturday (see GSN, Jan. 10).

A court sentenced the unidentified man to three years in prison and ordered him to pay a fine of more than $2,000.

A former employee of a parliamentary research center, the convicted man was accused of passing nuclear secrets to the People’s Mujahideen, an exiled group that has leaked information on Iran’s nuclear program (Reuters/Yahoo!News, May 5).

The sentence came shortly after last week’s arrest of former nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian, who is expected to be charged with nuclear-related espionage, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.

A Web site affiliated with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cited an anonymous source as saying Mousavian provided information to Germany.

No charges would be publicly announced until the investigation is complete and verdict is in, said a public prosecutor in Tehran (Frances Harrison, BBC, May 5).

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