Thursday, 11 May 2006LONDON, May 11 (IranMania) - Iran is willing to seek a diplomatic solution to concerns over its nuclear program, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said,CNN reported.
"The ongoing talk that has been stalled in a certain way can be resumed with the hope that communication between Iran and IAEA can be resumed and also that diplomatic and peaceful negotiations can be continued," Yudhoyono told media Wednesday following a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Yudhoyono said he was willing to help mediate in the hope of finding a diplomatic solution.
Yudhoyono's spokesman, Dino Pati Djalal, said Iran was very receptive to the offer.
"We need to breathe new life into the negotiations," he said, according to a report from The Associated Press.
Ahmadinejad told a Jakarta TV station in an interview Thursday morning that he was ready to negotiate with any country to resolve the dispute, but said that any threats against his country would made talks difficult.
"If someone points an arm (a weapon) at your face and says you must speak, will you do that?" he said, according to an Associated Press report.
Ahmadinejad said that Western nations with large stocks of nuclear weapons were practicing "double standards" in pressing Iran to stop its peaceful nuclear program, and dismissed the threat of sanctions.
"We do not need to be dependent on others," he said.
Yudhoyono said earlier he hoped Iran would continue dialogue with the IAEA.
"There is still room for a peaceful and just solution," he said. "President Ahmadinejad was more than willing to have a genuine and fair negotiation."
With Iran's nuclear ambitions dominating the international agenda, Ahmadinejad began a state visit to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim state, on Wednesday.
Ahmadinejad's visit comes just days after he sent a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush, the first direct communication between an Iranian leader and a U.S. president since the Islamic revolution in Tehran in 1979. (Full story)
Bush administration officials have dismissed the gesture. But in Jakarta, Ahmadinejad said the diplomatic ball was still in the American court.
"We are not disappointed because we sent the letter to the president if they choose not to answer it depends on them, we think we made the correct decision to send this letter at this junction, and we have done it, it now depends on the other side," Ahmadinejad said Wednesday.
President Bush commented on the letter Wednesday morning during an interview with Florida newspapers, which was posted on the St. Petersburg Times' Web site.
"It looks like it did not answer the main question that the world is asking and that is, 'When will you get rid of your nuclear program,'" Bush said in his first public comment on the letter.
"Britain, France, Germany -- coupled with the United States and Russia and China -- have all agreed that the Iranians should not have a weapon or the capacity to make a weapon. There is a universal agreement toward that goal and the letter didn't address that question," he said.
On Monday, a spokesman for Ahmadinejad said the Iranian president had sent a letter to Bush through the Swiss embassy that proposed "new ways" to end the current situation regarding Iran's nuclear program, which was dismissed by both the White House and the U.S. State Department for failing to address the nuclear issue. (Watch how Iran's president hopes to sway George Bush with a letter -- 1:41)
Iran's president also on Wednesday dismissed Western concerns over its nuclear program as "a big lie."
The comments from Ahmadinejad come a day after key U.N. Security Council members agreed to present Tehran with a choice of incentives or sanctions in deciding whether to suspend uranium enrichment. (Full story)
Meanwhile, in a letter to Time magazine published on its Web site Wednesday, a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered new possibilities toward solving the impasse with the United States and its allies on the issue, The Associated Press reported.
Hassan Rohani, Iran's former top nuclear negotiator, said Tehran would consider ratifying an International Atomic Energy Agency protocol that provides for intrusive and snap inspections and would also address the question of preventing a pullout from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The current Iranian negotiator, Ali Larijani, said Tuesday that Tehran had no intention of withdrawing from the treaty and promised to cooperate if the U.N. atomic watchdog agency dealt with the issue of its nuclear program, rather than the Security Council.
Iran ended all voluntary cooperation with the IAEA in February, including allowing snap inspections of its nuclear facilities.
Ahmadinejad told reporters Wednesday that Iran would "absolutely not back out" of defending its right to pursue new technology, accusing the United States and other Western nations of monopolizing the nuclear technology market to secure profits while engaging in non-peaceful proliferation.
"They pretend that they are concerned about the nature of the nuclear program of the Islamic republic of Iran," he said. "This is a big lie."
"Today the people of Iran are not just defending their own rights, but also those of other nations," he said.
"They [the United States and other Western powers] want to prevent other countries from reaching the pinnacle of science and technology."
Copyright 2006 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
Thursday, May 11, 2006 - T®2005 IranMania.com
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Thursday, 11 May 2006
Iran
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